Distilled tea leaves?

[Bavis54]

Got a link from a bartender friend about a new Bacardi liquor supposedly made from green tea leaves. Anyone ever use any kind of tea in wash before? I have a very old recipe book from my father that used a mandarin orange tea in a rum recipe, but I've never tried making it. Jus wondered your guy's thoughts on it-

[dieselduo]

Sometimes I make sun tea out of white dog

[Truckinbutch]

I've considered blending some Lapsang Souchong and honey with some of my AG for a cordial . That tar/rope smoke tea blend is not for everyone but it makes for an interesting blend for some palates .

[OtisT]

I'm interested in this thread to see what experience others share.

While I've not distilled with tea in the wash, in the last few months I have been doing a handful of small experiments macerating various teas, and enjoying the results.

I have a desire to steam some green tea in my gin basket, but I'm holding off for now, as my tea snob friend tells me I should only use fresh green team and the season is not yet upon us. He says green tea loses its flavor and strength fast, and we are hoping that steaming it while it's fresh will help retain all that flavor/smell.

[Truckinbutch]

Reasonable goal , OtisT .
I'm just looking at blending flavors that I like into a cordial that won't last long here .

[Bavis54]

The recipe I have from my fathers old book calls for a simple sugar wash- 1 lb sugar per gal water, it says to use an orange or lemon cut up in wash, and then a lb of horse feed ( which I assume is either sweet feed or oats) doesn't specify , and then to add one full box, 20 bags of mandarin orange tea. It says to heat water to boil and add sugar, then feed and tea. Then it specifies to pitch a wine yeast - it says after fermenting to distill at least two times in pot still using water in thumper. Sounds different, I never done a neutral or used tea but sounds good I gna try it.

[Truckinbutch]

I can see some positive results from that . Interesting potential flavor profile .

[kimbodious]

what a great thread! It was only Saturday when my wife and I discussed how we could make an "iced tea" spirit - infusion or maceration? Maceration appears easier.

[Oldvine Zin]

My past couple of gin runs I added quite a bit of camomile tea to the basket, makes a nice sleepy-time drop

OVZ

[Shine0n]

Tell us more!!! Lol
What's up with the tea wash?

[The Baker]

My past couple of gin runs I added quite a bit of camomile tea to the basket, makes a nice sleepy-time drop

OVZ

A recent Dan Murphy (liquor store) newsletter briefly mentioned gin flavoured with Earl Grey tea and lemon verbena.
Geoff

[Bavis54]

7 days ago I attempted to create the old tea wash recipe I found in one of my dads old recipe books. I heated 2 gal of water to 150 degrees, dissolved 8 lbs sugar in water and poured in 10 gal fermenter. I heated 8 more gal of water jus enough to get hot, maybe 100-120 degrees then added to fermenter. Once fermentervwas full of hot sugar water I added 2 boxes of celestial seasonings orange mandarin tea. This was 40 individual tea bags. I added the tea bags and left them in. After 24 hrs i added two packs of cuvée yeast. All recipe said was to use wine yeast. It's been working away all week. It has a really different taste, just like really sweet tea but you can taste the alcohol too. I like it just like it is. It's still fizzing and bubbling, when it's done I'll remove tea bags and distill. Very surprised at the taste so far.

[Bavis54]

Forgot to mention- I also added yeast nutrient and 2 sliced oranges to tea when adding yeast.

[MDH]

Sounds like an interesting project. Personally, I'd just take an already refined neutral with very little head or tail in it, and redistill with the herbs. This way you can get flavors and aromas that might otherwise be masked by feints.

[Jes2xu]

This is pretty cool.

Love seeing people doing something different. Honestly sounds like something right up my ally too.


I see experiments with infusion, boiler and gin basket in my future!

Yeastie Boys Gunnamatta IPA is one of my favourite beers. An IPA with earl grey.

[Bavis54]

Mdh- you have a great idea, and I may end up doing just exactly what you said, I dunno what kind of orange tea that the recipe was speaking of- the book is from the 1920s, but I could find only one kind readily available , n it is really good tea. After tasting just the tea I decided to try this, and if I can cleanly distill the spirit to taste like the wash, then we'll really have something, if not I'm gonna infuse a neutral with the tea itself, then distill. But so far the wash is unlike anything ever tried.

[Jes2xu]

Mdh- you have a great idea, and I may end up doing just exactly what you said, I dunno what kind of orange tea that the recipe was speaking of- the book is from the 1920s, but I could find only one kind readily available , n it is really good tea. After tasting just the tea I decided to try this, and if I can cleanly distill the spirit to taste like the wash, then we'll really have something, if not I'm gonna infuse a neutral with the tea itself, then distill. But so far the wash is unlike anything ever tried.

Exciting! Can't wait to hear the result!

[Bavis54]

Hey fellas someone besides me needs try this tea wash. I ran off a slow run last night, and I am really surprised just how much original flavor retention it has. The orange taste from the tea is amazing. It's like 150 proof tea. I dunno if caffeine carries over but the taste is so much better than expected . I figured it'd b a sugar wash with maybe a touch of the taste but it's way way more orange tea flavor than expected. I took some, cut to 80 proof n added 1 tea bag. Today that jar is the best ever!! Now I gotta order more tea!! Use celestial seasonings mandarin orange tea .

[Bavis54]

Running the tea wash yesterday-

[kimbodious]

I had planned to put a heap of Celestial Seasonings tea bags in my Carter Head but maybe I should try them in a wash instead?

[Bavis54]

I ordered more tea- but when I had to run wash hadn't arrived yet, I had planned on putting a whole box, plus some weak neutral alcohol in thumper. As it is I ran wash in thumper. That's one reason I surprised so much flavor carried over. Cant explain how-but for someone like me who has much to learn this was a big step in right direction. I told my friend last night I gotta patent this stuff- on diff note the tails from this had a freaking horrible horrible bitter flavor. Cut run off when this started.

[Still Life]

After reading so many tea failures, nice to see one that works.
What else is in your pop's book?

[still_stirrin]

...tsk...tsk...a plastic funnel holding activated carbon in a coffee filter??? NO THANKS.

[Bavis54]

Wats wrong with that?

[ShineonCrazyDiamond]

No plastics, anywhere.

Get one of these and never have it questioned again

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01MSZGR ... ref=plSrch" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[Bavis54]

Thank u

[Bavis54]

Update on distilled tea- I left it white, after a month the tea flavor is gone gone gone- tastes like a neutral. All alcohol no taste. Gonna try n macerate it now, had big hopes for this . Maybe maceration will work.

[NZChris]

Sometimes it just ain't gonna work, but if you are determined that it must work, try putting a new lot of tea in a gin head and running the spirit though it again. If that doesn't get enough flavor, repeat as many times as it is necessary to capture the flavor... or until you get the message that it just ain't gonna work

[Shine0n]

bite your lip and give it hell bubba.
maceration should be a good try, I read about suspension of herbs above the spirit would impart flavors. I've not tried it but it keep the likker white, possibly flavor it well and it's a win win.
experiment with shit till you find the calling.

[psf]

resurrecting the dead....

What was the verdict? Does anybody have a starting point for maceration like Odin's Gin?

Thanks