Gin Herbs Thread

[Odin]

More and more distillers develop gins. As a gin afficionado I think that is a good thing. But what herbs to use? I am not talking about complete recipes, but about ... new, old, innovative herbs. Gin is about trying new things, new herbs. I hope this thread becomes a place where we can share ideas and/or experience with herbs and what they do to your gin. Let's all chime in and discover where gin herbs can take us!

Why? Really, you want to ask why? Well, good question actually. If you don't like gin, maybe you are not interested. But bear in mind: the gins you don't like are the gins you bought in a store or drank in a bar.

Just another blind test I did like 3 weeks ago with some people that had a clear opinion on gin and what they liked (one liked Tanqueray, another person was in love with Bombay Saphire, a third one was crazy about Hendricks). So I had these gins available. I also had a variety of home as well as craft distilled gins up for the tasting. For each and every participant it was the same: after drinking the home and craft distilled stuff, they will never go back to the ones they previously liked.

Learning point? 1. If you don't like gin it may be because you never had a good gin; 2. With no other drink it is easier to outcompete "pro" stuff yourself. Just a small and steep learning curve. So ... let's start!

I will start with a specific herb. And give you my opinion about it. How I work with it, what I like in it. What's the catch, and what to do or not to do. My choice for today's gin herbs discussion? Liquorice!

I love liquorice, because it gives a nice spicy taste to my gin. I hate liquorice because it is either there ... or it isn't there at all in my end product. If it's not there, I miss it. But so often, when I put it in, it is overpowering. Not in taste, but in hotness. As if you are drinking gin mixed with hot sauce.

In my early gin recipes I aimed for 1 gram of liquorice per liter of boiler charge. Hot! I then dialed the amount back to 1/10th of a gram per liter boiler charge. Still hot! Dialing back to 1/100th of a gram per liter boiler charge gave me the desired results ... or not. Sometimes the gin was great and the liquorice added just that little bite I was looking for. And sometimes it just wasn't to be found anywhere.

More reading, more testing, more investigating thought me that the issue with liquorice is that most of the taste is found in very peculiair parts of the wood. Knots. If that is the correct word. One gram of liquorice wood has many. Another gram is devoid of these knots and does not add anything. Tastewise or spicyness-wise.

How can you get around this? There are a few ways in which you can work with liquorice and get desirable results.

One easy way is to skip them all together and replace them by cloves. Go for 0.5 grams per liter boiler charge. They give the spicynesss, but not the hotness.

Another way is to distill liquorice seperately. And dilute with neutral/vodka to get to the desired taste level. Then add an X amount of this liquorice drink to your final gin. Hmmm ... I don't like that because I am a fan of a one go approach on gin, but that's me.

A third way to treat liquorice is in the following way: just distill 1/20th of a gram of liquorice per liter of boiler charge. It may come over too hot. Or it may hardly be there. No problem. Make another batch and distill that. Do a third one and distill that as well. You now made the gin recipe three times. If you blend all of them together, for sure the hotness of run 1 will be compenated by the less hot results of run 2 and 3 (example). Solera approach to your gin is a way to manage liquorice.

A fourth way is not to add the liquorice to the boiler charge, but to vapour infuse it. As a rule of thumb vapour infusion only gets like 1/100th of the taste over, when compared to boiler distilled gin herbs. So for sure the liquorice won't overpower your gin. On the other hand ... your gin will be thinner in taste. Just so you know.

Okay, over to you. What herbs do you like? Why? And how do you use them?

Regards, Odin.

[RedwoodHillBilly]

I'm following this thread with interest. While I like gin, I've never been quite happy with the commercial offerings, there is just something off about them. Currently, I'm building my stock of clean neutral, a "blank canvas" so to speak. Gin is one of the things that I want to paint on it, but I'm not sure about a good recipe. Many that I have read just didn't seem right, but I may be wrong. I guess that "one good test is worth a thousand expert opinions" applies. Once I get enough (25 gal or so) neutral to experiment with, I'll try a couple tests.

[buflowing]

I don't know Odin. If you don't like the consistency of your results, I would say the hell with it and distill it separately. Then use as needed.

Driven by my liking of St George's Terroir, I've played with spruce and douglas fir, with varying results. I did as above and ran them separately. Still can't seem to get it right.

Caraway is another tough one for me.

[buflowing]

Redwood, make yourself a mini still. 4 quart or so capacity. Great size for experimenting with gin/genever recipes. 1.5 quart of 40% base spirit will yield a fifth or so of juice. Nice amount to see how it changes over time while sampling along the way. You can run a lot of different recipes quickly. Save that 25 gallons for when you think you have something you like.

[Rastus]

Odin,
I have only tried a few times on making a version of gin. of the commercial varieties i like the few that had Citrus overtones in the flavor. so when i was buying some herbs for my collection i got some Sweet Orange peel, of course Juniper berries, and Allspice Berries, mainly. last week in an effort to explore i went out and found a tea, was called licorice spice tea. so i bought that took approx .375 ml of my molasses rum at 40% ABV and soaked 3 tea bags shook em up and the flavor came out very strong within one hour i took em out.
previously on my adventures in the land of Gin, i just take white distillate and soak the herbs and spice till it tastes OK. my first attempt was good i was pleased, however my 2nd attempt i think i ran too strong on the Orange peels and they clouded my product, the taste was a wee bit strong, so i diluted with more white rum. still too strong... i will say with a tall glass of ice it mixed well. now with my licorice and orange flavors i am planning now after reading your writings and writing my reply i will go experiment with mixing some of the licorice into a larger portion of the mostly sweet orange peel flavored gin with juniper and allspice, and see how it turns out. the gin went well with tonic water .... the licorice blend mixed will with lemon ice tea....

i am being a little bit of a renegade on the gin, but it is fun. and will follow this thread where it goes and what else others have to say... i am just a novice and a wee bit lazy at that, but happy.

i wonder if anise would work well as it is similar to licorice but maybe more predictable...???

Regards

[RedwoodHillBilly]

Redwood, make yourself a mini still. 4 quart or so capacity. Great size for experimenting with gin/genever recipes. 1.5 quart of 40% base spirit will yield a fifth or so of juice. Nice amount to see how it changes over time while sampling along the way. You can run a lot of different recipes quickly. Save that 25 gallons for when you think you have something you like.

Ya, well my base boiler is 15 gal with a modular column system. I also have a 8 gal boiler. I have no need/desire for a 1 gal boiler. Too much work for so little return. I can run a simple test with 5 gal of 50% neutral diluted. I can't see any good reason to run anything smaller as my ferments are 50 gal.

I don't want to derail this thread, but I can put out 5 gal of very clean 50% neutral every 10 days. So there is no need to play with a small tool. I just need to find a recipe that seem right. When I'm reading recipes for cooking, I can taste it just by reading.

edit: clarification - and not to derail. No response wanted.

[still_stirrin]

Odin,

As usual, you have my attention. I REALLY enjoy the easy gin, especially the simplistic nature of it. The flavor is all gin (juniper and corriander). I've added just a hint (x/100) of a couple botanicals, but I favor the purity of the easy recipe. Of course, the citrus is nice but in mine, it's very low...I use dried sweet orange peel and dried lemon peel in the vapor tube...so it is in the background, at best. Fresh fruit zest might be better, although touchy to balance.

When I serve this gin, I pour it over a couple of ice cubes and squeeze a lime slice and garnish the glass. Refreshing and crisp. Satisfying, yet inviting. More is better. For the ultimate martini, shake over ice, strain and say the word, "vermouth"...perfect.

Now, with your non-mainstream botanical additions it has piqued my interest. Certainly, with an endorsement from "Odin" it is worth investigating. I have not (previously) tried licorice in the recipe, but I will try a batch and report my opinion.

I'm following this thread earnestly...
ss

[raketemensch]

What exactly is the definition of a gin? It struck me recently that Jaegermeister is probably a gin...

[bitter]

Very interesting....

Instead of liquorice have you tried anis seed? It has similar flavor and a bit more delicate, not as hot. Might be worth experimenting or even full star anis pod. In small amounts I think they would ad interesting stultifies of a gin making it unique.

B

[Odin]

That's a good one, Bitter!

So ... what was the reason that this herb is / was used in Dutch Gin? It has everything to do with liquorice containing high levels of glycyrrhizine. That's an anti-inflamatory. It helped 16th and 17th century sailors to stay in relative health, while sailing the world and eating ever more degraded food.

The science and lore behind gin and genever has as much to do with taste as it has to do with health. I find that a very intoxicating perspective!

Regards, Odin.

[sparky marky]

I recently bought a bottle of monkey 47. It gets rave reviews apparently but I mostly bought it because the bottle is cool as f*ck.
Really complex drink they have there, their botanical list is as long as my arm.
So far Iv been really happy with my own gins because they're better than anything in the supermarket but I have been forced to admit that in a side by side tasting monkey 47 is better than mine
Gonna give this complex recipe thing a go. My last gin had 10 botanical, for my next attempt I'm going to try and balance the flavours of more than 20 ingredients... Take a look:

Juniper and coriander seed (obviously...)
Lemon zest
Orange zest
Grapefruit zest
Fresh dill
Orris root
Coriander leaf
Rose petals
Elderflower
Raspberries
Cranberries
Blackberries
Basil leaf
Kaffir lime
Lemongrass
Root Ginger
Bay leaf
??Cumin seed??
Cinnamon
Cardamom pods
Cloves
Black Peppercorns
Szechuan peppercorns
Angelica
Almonds

[Grappa-Gringo]

That's one helluva list! Trying to find a balance of all that is going to be a challenge I think. And... if you miss one, will it make that much of a difference?? You've got some really strong flavors in that bunch. Be careful!
gg

[sparky marky]

It's just an experiment really, normally I take the opposite approach and focus on one or two special ingredients that the drinker can pick out but I just really liked this commercial gin with the complex recipe, it wasn't muddled like I was expecting it to be.

[Odin]

I think the 47 herbs are marketing. I find this gin ... mediocre to say the least. And no-one can distinguish between more than 7 or 8 herbs anyhow. More of them means less quantities of each. And one big taste blur instead of finesse and delicacy.

Just my 47 cents.

Odin.

[pyrate]

Sometimes I am not following Odin at 100% but he is right with his thoughts on the Monkey 47. The makers of Monkey 47 were often asked, if the number 47 is a marketing number and it is! They admit that 47 is random because it is just a nice number (47% ABV too by the way). They explained that 25 botanicals are used at a significant proportion, which is still a lot. I guess their key botanical is orris root. It makes the Monkey 47 very sweet and taste like a coke. They also make a "before"-maceration with ligonberries but they admit that you are not able to taste them. The explanation for the premaceration is that this process enhances the aroma solvention in the final macerate. I dont never heard of something like this before.

Just my 53 cents to make it a dollar

[Odin]

... and thanks for sharing!

Odin.

PS: I don't understand myself either, half of the time.

[Rastus]

it is good to always have just a little confusion, to drive the questions, that lead us to better understanding.

By doing so here in a forum such as this it opens the thought and exploration of the possible answers to the digital universe and
allows all of us who follow the path a chance to also consider it and apply it to our own journey.

I am moving on my path with fewer ingredients in order to better understand how each contributes or overwhelms in this process.

at current count i have 5 ... but i am just a simple guy. I plan to add a few more a little at a time.

i am interested in the medicinal qualities of certain herbs also such as Ginger root, Ginseng, A variety of wormwood (Artemisia) grows wild in my location and is prized as a healer of sore muscles and clearing a stubborn cough, as is also needles from the spruce trees in our region. i like the mention you gave Odin of the qualities of certain herbs like Licorice root to promote good health. especially among sailors, for instance.

so i am thankful as i ponder it, that occasionally some one is stirring this thread to remind me to focus on it again.

regards!

Rastus

[raketemensch]

I guess their key botanical is orris root. It makes the Monkey 47 very sweet and taste like a coke.

I went looking for "whole orris root," and found some, this is the whole description on the web site selling it:

Carry in Red Flannel Bag to attract the love of the opposite sex.

You guys are just wasting it in your gin, man.

Honestly, though, that sounds pretty tasty. I'll have to give this a shot soon.

[Odin]

I guess their key botanical is orris root. It makes the Monkey 47 very sweet and taste like a coke.

I went looking for "whole orris root," and found some, this is the whole description on the web site selling it:

Carry in Red Flannel Bag to attract the love of the opposite sex.

You guys are just wasting it in your gin, man.

Honestly, though, that sounds pretty tasty. I'll have to give this a shot soon.

... so ... if there is so much orris root in there, they should rename their gin into Monkey 69!



Odin.

[freaky_cutout]

Angelica ? I have heard of blokes using that.

[Odin]

Yeah, that's a nice ingredient for sure!

Odin.

[as82]

Hi,


2 ingredients that impressed me:

Nana-Mint
I buy it as tea. (As matter of fact is makes a great tea - better than common peppermint.)
It´s a mint.. but a special aroma.

I usually work with 40% neutral ...
6-9g/l juniper
flake of orange peel
2g/l coriander seeds
+nana-mint
...for a strong and dominant flavour I use 4-6 g/l with little to none infusion time.
As a tone use rather 2g/l.
Nana mint also seems to fit in Pastis/Pernod style spirits.

Ginger
I tried to do something with ginger... didn´t manage to come up with anything with ginger as as a dominant note. But it does magic in combination with fruits like cherries or raspberries. Think of ginger as a flavour enhancer.
Same gin base as above with:
100g fruit with ca. 2-3g ginger (fine slice from a ginger root ,cut it in fine sticks)

Best regards
Andy

[The Booze Pipe]

Fresh coriander is one of my favorites. When crushed it has an amazingly complex citrus essence! Toasting the seed can also help bring out flavors.