Author Archives: Diary Of A Novice Gin Maker

So no blog post yesterday. I could say that we were deliberately leaving our first flavour profiles to ferment a little longer, but in truth it is just that life sometimes gets in the way of having fun.

Today, we are back to tasting. I also had my first Covid vaccination today, so it will be interesting to see the effect of drinking neat alcohol on top of this!

Firstly, another sample of both the darker (slightly crushed juniper) and the light (juniper simply added to the bottle). Interesting to see if the taste has changed much after another 2 days left fermenting with the berries in. Result: not really. The darker still has a stronger aroma and is smoother to taste, but also more of a ‘burn’ down the back of your throat. The lighter has a slightly bitter aftertaste and still an underlying hint of the vodka from which it evolved. But no difference to tasting them 2 days ago.  So we removed the juniper berries from both samples, as it appears they have done their job.

Of course we don’t usually sit of a Saturday night (or any other night for that matter) socially drinking neat gin. For me, that would be something akin to torture (see blog post 2…!) and I would spend more of the evening ‘talking on the great white telephone’ than I would socialising. So at this point I bow down to the great and the good who had the good sense and creativity to find a useful purpose for quinine: Tonic.

Our mixer of choice for your typical London Dry gin tends to be Fever Tree light tonic water. We’ve been to a gin tasting evening and a huge arena Gin Show where we’ve sampled – many times – the delights and differences (sometimes subtle, sometimes great chasms) between different tonics, so we don’t intend to start that debate again here. And of course there’s those who don’t like tonic at all and go for lemonade etc. (I know 2 people with very discerning palates who thought they hated gin with a passion, until they actually realised it is the flavour of tonic that they have the aversion to.) But for the purposes of today’s taste testing, we stuck with the old familiar.

On adding tonic to both the light and dark samples, it instantly (for me at least) begins to taste infinitely more palatable and familiar. The darker gin though, definitely still has more of a preferable taste. Just more taste full stop really. The lighter is predominantly just the flavour of tonic. So there we have it, Test 3: If attempting to make a straight dry gin, the juniper berries slightly crushed gives a better result.

We’re both excited now to try our first 2 attempts at flavoured gins: Rhubarb & Ginger, and Chocolate Orange.

If you remember, we tried the 2 flavours with both the lighter and the darker gin mixes, to identify any difference. The results are surprising.

Firstly, the Rhubarb & Ginger. OK, so the balance of flavours aren’t right yet, but we can cut ourselves a little slack on that as it is only the first attempt.We both tasted ginger, but no rhubarb. But of the light and darker samples, the darker Rhubarb & Ginger was overpowered by the stronger taste of juniper, losing the subtle flavours underneath. In the lighter Rhubarb & Ginger, the smell and the flavour of the ginger was clearly there.

On to the Chocolate Orange. Interestingly, when neat, neither of us could taste or smell very much at all, perhaps just a slight whiff of orange from the light gin mix. However, when mixed with tonic, I could more clearly smell and taste the orange – in both, but especially in the light gin mix. Hubbie was not so convinced, but then again it has been a recurring topic of conversation throughout our marriage that his sense of smell is, frankly, rubbish.

Of the chocolate though (we used cacao nibs) there was nothing. Nada. Nichts. And for us both as huge chocolate lovers, how disappointing. So on this mix at least, we’ve decided to keep the rest of our cacao nibs for another day.

The best discovery of the day is that when making a simple dry gin, the sample with the slightly crushed juniper (the darker one) tastes superior. But for both flavoured samples, the underlying taste of juniper was too overpowering in the darker gin mix, and the lighter one was much better – allowing the flavours to come through. Therefore decision made. Test 4: for flavoured gin, use the lighter gin mix.

To attempt to improve our first 2 flavours, we have added more rhubarb to the darker Rhubarb & Ginger, and more orange peel to the darker Chocolate Orange. In a couple of days we can then compare again the lighter (currently preferred) versions with the ‘Take 2’ enhanced (darker) versions.

To finish off today, having made the decision that the darker of the 2 base samples on its own is preferable, we’ve now combined the lighter and darker base gins into 1 bottle. We’ve kept some back as a tasting sample, and to the remaining 350ml we are attempting flavour profile 3 – Raspberry & Hibiscus. 1 fairly large dried Hibiscus flower, some freeze dried Raspberry and 5 fresh raspberries later, and we have some pink mush in a bottle.

We now have 6 half-bottles of gin, of various concoctions, sitting in the corner of the kitchen worktop. We hope they are working their magic. Otherwise they may all end up in the bin and we’ll start again. Who knows? We’ll let you know in a couple of days.

Hubbie’s comment of the evening is that he thinks our new hobby may become very expensive. And we all know how typical Scotsmen feel about that!

And in case you’re wondering about the after-effects of gin tasting and Covid injections? So far, a clear head, but a slightly dead arm. And I don’t think even I can blame gin for that.

I learned something today. I do not like drinking neat vodka. It burns my throat, makes me gag, and sends immediate “fight or flight” messages to my brain.

I like smelling neat vodka even less. In fact, if anyone out there is considering their preferred method of removing the odd unruly stray nose hair, I suggest trying vodka sniffing as an inexpensive form of depilation. As one deep inhale through the nostrils feels like it will literally burn away the lining of your nose itself, any nose hair, and probably a good percentage of your brain cells too.

So why on earth was I drinking and sniffing neat vodka, I hear you say? In the name of gin research, of course.

Our basic gin base made yesterday has been sitting fermenting for over 24 hours, letting the juniper berries work their sweet pungent magic. And before we move on to the next stage, hubbie and I thought we should compare and contrast the 2 differing base mixes both against each other, and against straight vodka. And to avoid any visual bias, do so with our eyes shut.

He went first. Eyes closed: vodka – long, deep sniff. Followed by a good slug, quickly swallowed without so much as a raised eyebrow – like the true roughty-toughty hard-spirit-drinking Scot that he is.

Secondly gin base Sample 1 – Deep sniff, slug, swallow, bringing forth the comment “That is NOT unpleasant.”

Then gin base Sample 2 – Equally deep comparative sniff, slug, swallow, to which he announced “That one is better.”

My turn. Eyes closed, he hands me the glass…. Then let’s not relive the unpleasantness of my vodka sniffing experience, suffice to say my face apparently contorted “like one of those old gurning women with no teeth.”

On to Sample 1: easier on the nose, and far more palatable. Not bad. Definitely almost gin already – perhaps just not very good gin, yet.

Then Sample 2: not that much difference to Sample 1 in the sniff test to my indelicate sense of smell. But the taste? Definitely smoother. Surprisingly noticeably different to Sample 1. At this stage, Sample 2 clearly the winner.

Sample 1 had the juniper berries just added to the vodka, the end result being lighter in both colour and flavour. Whereas in Sample 2, an equal amount of berries were lightly crushed in the mortar and pestle before adding to the vodka. This resulted in a slightly darker coloured gin, and a smoother more rounded flavour.

Now the fun part, time to start adding other botanicals and get some additional flavour into this bad boy.

We have decided to try 2 different flavours (for no other reason than because we can.) So this time, we are attempting chocolate orange, and rhubarb & ginger. We firstly decanted 2 lots of each sample (approx 350ml each) into different bottles. So 4 in total.

Into the first bottle of Sample 1 (the lighter) we added half a teaspoon of cacao nibs and orange peel. Into the second bottle of Sample 1 we added freeze dried rhubarb and ginger. We repeated the same into the 2 bottles of Sample 2, so that we will have a comparative of the 2 different juniper strengths.

I am really enjoying all the measuring, pouring, combining and basically, playing with flavours. We will now leave our concoctions for another 24 hours, and then have another taste test.

I have decided if nothing else and the results taste like the bottom of a swill bucket at the end of a busy Saturday night in a Glasgow pub, then at least I can say, I’m loving the alchemy.

I have been set a challenge. A challenge to make really good home crafted gin. A gin to beat other home-made gins. Or should I say, a gin that beats the rest of my family’s paultry efforts to do the same.

Only one problem, I have never made gin before, and have no clue where to start.

So here’s the story. Every year for approximately the last 10 years, there has been a big family holiday somewhere in the UK. A once a year opportunity for my Dad and Stepmum to spend quality time with their two off-spring (my older brother and I) and in turn, our off-spring too – my daughter, and my 2 neices.

My Dad and Stepmum don’t do things by halves for the 9 of us. For this long weekend – or a week if we’re lucky and all have the time to spare – over the years they have hired large, cosy, luxury English country cottages with expansive gardens, a quirky 16th century Scottish laird’s tower house, and even a castle on a remote Scottish island with its own kamikaze peacocks. (I kid you not.) And for those precious few days of uninterrupted family time we enjoy each others company while we walk and explore the locality (until our limbs ache), we chat and laugh (until our jaws ache) we cook and eat (until we burst), we play family games (daft, loud and very competitive) and we drink (quite a lot).

Recently, that drinking – for the 6 adults at least – has shifted more from beer, wine and prosecco, to gin. We all seem to have acquired a strong liking for the delights of the juniper berry (I do know that much) in all its forms.

Even my 14 year old daughter has long developed the skill of mixing a mean gin & tonic (mixing only at this stage thankfully, but give it time …)

So for this year’s week away we have set ourselves a wee competition. Each part of the family has to bring with us our best attempt at homemade gin, containing whatever botanicals take our fancy. We will then taste-test them all together, many times probably, and decide on a winner.

Yes it’s my family, yes it’s just for fun. But I really want to win.

This year we will all meet on 9th July in a grade 2 listed Georgian house in Northumberland. This means I have approximately 2 months to learn the art of making a really decent homemade gin, from nothing.

Today, I began. Essentially, I now know that gin is basically any strong base alcohol, usually vodka, (minimum 37% ABV) mixed with juniper berries and then any other botanicals that your discerning and creative palete desires.

First things first. I promptly dispatched hubbie to the local supermarket (accompanied by daughter, to keep him right) in search of lots of cheap vodka. They returned half an hour later with 2 litre bottles of red label Smirnoff. The cheapest? No. But it was all he could find he said. This leads to Test 1: Will the base alcohol make any difference? We will see.

Advise tells me approximately 1 teaspoon of juniper berries to 350ml of vodka. So after lightly crushing the berries in a morter & pestle, 3 teaspoons went into 1 litre. And therein Test 2: What is the correct ratio of juniper to alcohol? We now leave this for 24 hours, and then add other botanicals. So stage 2 tomorrow.

I suspect there may be much tasting and many mistakes in pursuit of perfection over the next 2 months. But it is a sacrifice hubbie and I are very willing to make. It is all very exciting really.

Either that, or just a bloody good excuse to get really pissed.

Join me along this journey, and we will see.