Ho ho ho!

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pjm1
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Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2021 9:58 am

Ho ho ho!

Post by pjm1 »

Hi all

I'm Paul and I live in Scotland. You may have heard but we have some fairly reasonable spirits over here but funnily enough I'm not looking to replicate them (I don't have the 12+ years I'm willing to wait!)

My particular interest is gin. As a couple, my wife and I don't really drink much in the way of spirits (whisky at Christmas for me) apart from being rather passionate about gin and tonic. So I'm looking to learn the craft and work my way up to making great gin - primarily for use in G&Ts. We do a lot of entertaining and it is probably the tipple of choice for many of our friends, so while they won't know it (don't sell and don't tell) - they'll end up drinking our own gins.

It will also be great to be able to provide them to my mum & dad who are both similarly big fans of G&T. The fact we'll be able to gift them bottles each month will be great - although my mum's palate is excellent so she'll be my biggest critic if she thinks I've mucked up...

Looking forward to getting to know you all and asking sensible questions. My eyes are duly bleeding from the amount of reading here on this site, so hopefully I won't be asking the daftie questions (or at least not too many of them).

Cheers!
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Fletching
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Re: Ho ho ho!

Post by Fletching »

Welcome! I am fairly new to distilling as well (only about 2 years in). Everything I have done has been formed by discussions on this forum. Like you said, there is a crazy amount of information on here and some extremely knowledgeable individuals.

If you are after gin, and you are set up to make a good neutral, Odin’s Easy Gin in the tried and true recipes is amazing. I’m not even typically a gin drinker, but I very much enjoyed it. My family gave it a double thumbs. The issue is, it doesn’t last long on my shelf! Hard to keep people’s hands off of it… :lol:

Good to have you here. I look forward to further discussions with you and learning from your experiences as well.

-Fletching
Here’s to lobster tail and whiskey. Three of my favorite things.

Easy Maceration Boiler https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... 7#p7691427
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jonnys_spirit
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Re: Ho ho ho!

Post by jonnys_spirit »

Welcome to HD Highlander! I've got family in Ayre and have visited over the years but it's been too long so need to plan a trip :)

Everybody loves free alcohol - especially when it's home made lol!

+1 on OEG - I like it with maybe a bit more juniper and less citrus but still need to experiment more with different botanicals. If you're making your own neutral a reflux column / larger boiler might be the way to go for producing your neutral while a smaller batch size gin still would also be helpful so you can do more batches of smaller quantities.

Welcome to the rabbit hole lol!

Cheers,
jonny
————
i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred
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pjm1
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Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2021 9:58 am

Re: Ho ho ho!

Post by pjm1 »

Thanks for the warm welcome, Fletching and Jonny. Over the week or so I've been dithering here I've gone from...

1. Amazon do cheapo stills, they must be worth looking at (err... no!)
2. Oh, an Airstill looks fairly reasonable and 4 litres sounds like a decent amount (err... no!)
3. Ok, I guess I'll have to go with a T500 and that fancy condenser column (err... maybe not best for gin)
4. Right, build it then! (still researching that one)

I'll stick a post up with my initial thoughts somewhere suitable in the novice section - conscious I'm not to ask questions here anyway. OEG looks fantastic from the rave reviews everyone seems to give it. My favourite gin (apart from an unusual but delicious cacao number) is Tanqueray 10 so after a few runs of OEG I might look towards trying to make something akin to that.

Those are problems for another day though!
n_plains_drifter
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Re: Ho ho ho!

Post by n_plains_drifter »

PJM1: There are a couple of gin recipes in the tried and true (Odin's for one). But I think you are seeing that many of the 'easily' available stills aren't really practical for gin. I've got gin on the list, but haven't the right equipment to make it yet, so it's on the list of 'in the future'.

Anyway, welcome and keep up the research.

Best, Drifter
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