How To Make Gin And The Aromatics
All gins need , which can be ordered on amazon. Beyond that, I chose to use coriander seed, ginger, lemon peel, lime peel, orange peel, and lemongrass. These were recipe decisions, mostly because I already had them in stock. I also had cinnamon, cucumber, and almonds on hand, but I decided to leave them out. Lemongrass and ginger were already added, which I felt were distinguishing enough.
Requirements For Homemade Gin
Under the European Union, there is a specific definition regarding gins makeup and taste, and there are regulations for the process of making it.
The EU requires that gin be made from a natural ingredient such as potatoes, wheat, or barley so that it has a neutral flavour. Additionally, all gin must have juniper as a flavouring agent otherwise, it is not a proper gin. However, other gin botanicals are popular for adding extra flavouring.
Gin must have a pure alcohol content of at least 37.5%. Alcohol-free gin does exist, although you cant make it at home without using a juniper syrup and carbonated soda water.
What Is Gin Made Out Of
Gin in its most basic form is actually pretty straightforward. Its simply a neutral spirit as the base which is then flavored with botanicals.
Botanicals are any plant material used as a way to add flavor they release their flavors upon infusing them into the raw spirit.
You can say its pretty much like special flavored vodka. When you say gin, it means that juniper berries are the most dominant among the botanicals, and it is at least 37.5% alcohol by volume .
Most industrial and commercial gin makers extract the flavors from botanicals via a distillation process.
However, it is possible to make gin simply by steeping plants, herbs, or spices in the base spirit.
Yes, you can very much make your own gin at home using vodka. Its easy! Just like making vodka at home.
Beyond the vodka and the juniper berries, you can feel free to experiment with whatevers in your spice cabinet, fruit you like, plus botanicals from your herb garden.
Some of the most commonly used gin botanicals are coriander seeds, angelica root, citrus peel, and cinnamon. But this is just to list a few! Again, feel free to include any spices and herbs.
Maybe you can try bay leaves, rosemary, licorice powder, lavender, cardamom, cumin, fennel seeds, or lemongrass. If youre not sure where to start, check whats in your favorite commercial gins and use those for inspiration.
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How To Make Gin At Home In 7 Easy Steps
Many bartenders and master distillers love gin due to is its versatility as a spirit. Believe it or not, you can make a batch of aromatic gin at home, without high-tech equipment or a chemistry degree.
Whipping up a bit of your own homemade gin can be really fun. Want to make your own gin at home?
Try our easy compound gin recipe and add a bottle to your drinks cabinet. Once youve learned how to make gin, you can move on to mixing your own gin cocktails!
Final Thoughts On Diy Gin
Overall, both attempts tasted like gin and were complex and tasty. Id like to try rose petals instead of rosehips next time but we had rosehips on hand already, so it was easy to throw them in.
While researching, I saw recipe instructions ranging from a 12-hour steep to a couple of days for the infusion. As I mentioned, both gins were already pretty strong after 24 hours which makes sense since I used half the amount of liquor than the Craft Gin Club recipe called for.
So just be willing to taste and adjust your time accordingly. If you use 375 ml of liquor, its likely your gin will only need to sit for 24 hours. It doesnt take a bunch of time to steep! And dont forget to shake your gin distillate a couple of times in the process.
And dont be afraid to play with the flavor profile and ingredients! There were a lots of popular gin botanicals I could have added, but I worked with what we had in our pantry and didnt want to order too many new ingredients. Remember, as long as you include juniper, you can throw in whatever other botanicals you want.
Here are some popular ingredients and extra botanicals I didnt use but that you might want to include for a complex flavour profile:
- Angelica root
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Note On Steeping Gin:
Ive seen some recipes that say to wait 24-48 hours for this second sitting, but be careful not to let your concoction steep too long. I ended up letting it sit for an additional 16 hours .
The gin was already pretty strong after 24 hours, and I didnt think it should go another full 24 hours. Next time, I may just let it sit with all ingredients for 24 hours, making sure to add the fresh peel of citrus from the very beginning.
Is It Safe To Drink Tonic Water Every Day
It is generally harmless for most people to drink tonic water daily in moderation. Quinine is the ingredient in tonic water that is responsible for its semi-bitter and dry taste. The alkaloid is derived from cinchona bark and can lead to quinine toxicity in high doses. This is most often a concern in medication form or for people with certain medical conditions, and it can interact with some medications. To ensure the tonic water sold in the U.S. is safe, the FDA limits how much quinine can be present in tonic water.
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A Guide To Making Your Own Gin Liqueur
Its simple to make and blend your very own gin liqueur. Proof? Why, this perfect homemade sloe gin, for starters. Read on for more tips on perfecting your own sloe gin and other infused tipplesplus recipes from our talented Distiller, Ollie Kitson.
Were well into sloe gin season, and now is certainly the time of year to go on a foraging adventureand then make a delicious, infused gin liqueur with the fruits of your labour. But beyond the hedgerow fruits, theres almost no limit to the flavours you can infuse into your gin .
But for those who have yet to experiment with crafting their own gin liqueur, it might be best to begin with fresh fruits, herbs, chocolate, and other approachable flavours. We always recommend working with duos or trios of flavours for more interesting and complex blends strawberry works gorgeously alongside basil, for instance, while chocolate and orange are born partners. As a general rule, sweet and tart or astringent flavours balance each other out very well.
But beyond the hedgerow fruits, theres almost no limit to the flavours you can infuse into your gin
When crafting your gin liqueur, the most important directive of all is to taste as you go: depending on the individual ingredients that youre using, everything will infuse a little bit differently, so sampling throughout the process ensures youre happy with the final flavour.
When crafting your gin liqueur, the most important directive of all is to taste as you go
Why Juniper The Science Behind Gins Taste
Well, thats just where gin comes from. The name gin itself is derived from either the French genièvre or the Dutch jenever, which both mean juniper.
Apart from water and ethanol, the only other raw materials used for distilled gin-making are natural flavorings. But the predominant flavor is always juniper.
Ethanol draws many different oils out of the cells of juniper berries these are mainly monoterpenes and also some sesquiterpenes.
Monoterpene flavour molecules that have been identified in these berries include:
- -pinene
- sabinene
The predominant sesquiterpene molecules are:
- farnesene
- cadinene and
- caryophyllene
All of these combine to give your drink that piney, woody, peppery, citrusy, woody, spicy, and menthol taste.
The exact flavor molecules, and especially their proportions, vary between juniper species and upon where the juniper grew which has an obvious knock-on effect on how the berries taste and smell.
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Adding Botanical Mix To Your Still Column
After youve cleaned your still thoroughly, youll need to add your botanical mix to your still column. For this, you will roll up about 20 inches of copper packing and insert it into the bottom section of your stills column. Then wrap your crushed botanical mix into a folded piece of cheesecloth. Be sure to fold the sides of the cheesecloth upward to make a small satchel. Tie a string around the top of your small botanical satchel.
Lower your botanical cheesecloth satchel down the column onto the copper packing using the string. If you are using a still with a site glass section, clamp it below the section of your column with the copper packing.
If your still setup has a condenser, hook up your water input and output.
Next, youre going to add your gin mash water into your still. We highly recommend using a siphon for this process. This method is the best way to reduce the amount of sediment from your fermented gin mash water getting into the still. Leaving particles and sediments in the mash water will cause the distillate to burn and ruin your product, so be diligent during this step.
Creating Interesting Botanical Blends
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How To Make Your Own Homemade Gin
Craft Gin Club
750ml good quality vodka
2 tbsp juniper berries
2 peppercorns
Half a cinnamon stick
A small piece of dried orange peel
A small piece of dried lemon peel
Picture: Craft Gin Club
1 Sterilise a clean mason jar or glass bottle with boiling water
2 Add your botanicals to the jar, minus any fresh peel
3 Top up with vodka, then leave to infuse in a cool dark place for 24 hours
4 Taste the infusion it should have taken on some lovely juniper ginnyness already. Add your fresh peel, along with and extra botanicals whose flavour you want to boost.
5 Leave for up to another 24 hours, giving the bottle a gentle shake at least once. Beware of leaving it too long and over-infusing the mixture think of it a bit like brewing tea.
6 Taste again and if youre happy, then filter out all the botanicals using a sieve. If theres still some sediment left, use some muslin or a coffee filter to strain again.
7 Leave the liquid to sit for a couple of days and then filter out any remaining sediment and put through a water filter jug if you want to make it even clearer .
8 Bottle your gin feel free to create your own label if you want and youre ready to try your creation out on your nearest and dearest.
Find the original article here and learn how to join the club here
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Cocktails, mixology, wine tasting, and more.
Whether youre sipping a cocktail on your couch or at the bar, its nice to know a little more about whats in your glass. If gin is your drink of choice, this guide is for you, with plenty of intel on how gin is made, what creates its signature flavor, andmost importantlyall the ways you can drink it.
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Winter Infused Gin Recipe
Whats great about this recipe is how incredibly easy it is. You basically just steep a bunch of herbs and spices in a neutral spirit, such as vodka, for a few days and there it is.
Now here is where I tell you what I did a little differently .
I only used 1 tsp coriander seeds and added 1 tsp anise seeds, because I read that they are often used in gin making and that sounded tasty to me.
I actually didnt think that I had any coriander seeds, until I got smart and raided my gardening seed packets. Coriander is cilantro seed, and I had some on hand!
I also used a fresh sage leaf from my garden, and was happy to find that the plant was alive and well under all the snow.
Since there is no white fir in my immediate vicinity, I used Douglas-fir instead. I debated between that and blue spruce, as I bet that would be nice as well.
Any edible conifer sprig will work instead of white fir, such as pine, spruce, or Douglas-fir.
Do not use Yew as it is toxic.
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Gin Classes And Stills
It goes without saying that gin will also be made as part of our classes How to make moonshine. If you would like more detailed information in the course about how to make gin, possible compositions of the botanicals, etc., please mention Gin in the comments when registering for the classes.
Are you looking for distilling equipment or a copper still for making gin? The Piccolo-copper still or Vetro-copper still are suitable above all for gin makers who like to experiment. A distillation process takes 20-30 minutes, so you can try many experiments in a short amount of time and with only a small amount of materials. The distillation will yield around 200 ml of gin.
If you would like to distill larger quantities of gin, then the copper still Classic or copper still Deluxe would be the right choice for you. You also need a graduated cylinder and the hydrometer to dilute the distillate.
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Gin Distillation Kit
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Ready To Make Your Own Gin
The best part about making your own gin?
You can 100% control what goes into it. The mix below produces a fragrant gin thats light and refreshing.
For a stronger juniper flavor, infuse the juniper berries overnight, then add the rest of the ingredients and infuse for another 24 hours.
The short version of the recipe goes like this:
- Stuff the herbs & spices into a very clean bottle.
- Cover with vodka for 24 hours
- Strain, filter , rebottle, enjoy!
Heres a little eye candy for what that looks like.
What They Said On Making Your Own Gin At Home
“For a spirit that is so complex, nuanced and diverse, gin in its most basic form is actually pretty straightforward. Its a neutral base spirit which is flavoured with botanicals so essentially, like vodka with extra bits.
“The only real stipulation for it to be called gin is that there is juniper is the dominant botanical and it is at least 37.5 per cent Abv. Beyond that, the world is kind of your oyster.
Picture: Craft Gin Club
“Most proper, commercial gin makers extract the flavours from their botanicals through distillation, it is very possible to make gin simply by steeping them in the base spirit. Which in fact means it is very possible to make your own gin at home, using vodka.
“The technical name for this is compound gin but its also sometimes called bathtub gin, in reference to the vessel in which batches were illegally made during American Prohibition in the 1920s.
“Theres nothing illegal about whipping up a bit of your own homemade gin and it can be great fun.
“Beyond the vodka and the juniper berries, you can feel free to experiment with whatever botanicals you like. Some of the most commonly used gin botanicals are coriander seed, angelica root, citrus peel and cassia bark or cinnamon but feel free to raid the spice cabinet and herb garden.
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Wash And Sterilize The Bottle Or Container
Note: The gin kit instruction booklet does not suggest that you need to sterilize your container. But if you want to ensure that your container is thoroughly clean, then this is a good idea to sterilize it.