Homemade Gin...

[cuallito]

Hi I thought this would be the best place to ask this...

I made some homemade gin by soaking quite a few juniper berries in good vodka, and I'm quite pleased with the results (except for the color, it's pond water brown - yuck.) It tastes pretty good as is, but it tastes like it needs some sort of floral (and maybe a citrus) note in there to really knock it out of the park.

I tried adding some rose water to a Tom Collins I made with it and it was close, but not quite right (too musky.)

I looked around on the thegoodscentscompany.com and I noticed that juniper shares quite a few compounds with angelica, do you think that'd do the trick?

Any suggestions on what flowers to try?

[pkiler]

You can get orange Blossom water probably in the same shop where you bought the Rose Water...

Yes, Why Not Angelica..?

[cuallito]

Thanks. Got some of the gin soaking with angelica root right now definitely seems to boost the juniper, but doesn't add that counter point I'm looking for. Will try the orange blossom....

Do different colors of rose smell different? Like does white rose smell "cleaner" than red rose?

[Ambolt]

When you say taste, I am assuming you are referring to smell?

[David Ruskin]

Gin is not just flavoured with Juniper, and there are many Gins all flavoured slightly differently. The Botanicals used include:- Juniper, Nutmeg, Orange Peel, Lemon Peel, Grapefruit Peel, Angelica, Orris, Coriander and Cassia. Usually when making the fine, these Botanicals are soaked in pure grain alcohol for a time dependent upon the Botanicals being used. The soaked alcohol is then distilled, so that the flavours are distilled with the gin. I don't know any more of the details of this.

[Chris Bartlett]

What you are making is a flavoured vodka, not gin.

To be gin it has to be distilled as David has said - either under vacuum or in a traditional copper pot still - that's why gin is generally clear: the distillation process removes most of the coloured elements and of course changes the flavour. A few gin companies (Sacred and Sloanes are the only two I know) distill each botanical separately and blend afterwards, most put all the botanicals into the spirit together and distill in a single batch.

Distillation requires a license from HMRC in the UK, regulations elsewhere vary a lot, but flavoured vodkas are easy to do and I make quite a lot of them for my own use. Nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, vanilla and saffron are all very successful and I also really like black pepper, red pepper and chilli pepper vodkas, though they are mainly useful in cocktails rather than to drink alone.

I do make flavoured gin too, by starting with a supermarket premium gin and adding something - saffron or cardamon usually - giving a complex flavour that works well as long as you don't add too much. Saffron gin in particular is a really great drink that makes a spectacular deep yellow / orange martini.

All of these work best if you start with a strong base spirit (above 40%) and use dried rather than fresh botanicals.