Test blending gin using the macerate.

[NormandieStill]

Possible dumb question, but I'm looking to do some experimentation with gin recipes in the near future (got a big pile of spices to play with). I have searched but not found a past take on this. I was wondering if anyone has tested creating non-distilled essences through simple maceration which could then be blended. The idea would be to take "standard" recipes (ie Odin's 12g juniper / litre) and scale the alcohol quantities down. So I might make a 500ml batch of juniper (12g / 500ml 43% - 2 weeks) and smaller batches of various other herbs + spices. These could then be blended and tasted (with the understanding that the overall flavour will be reduced post-distillation) to develop a base recipe which could then be refined once the effect of re-distillation is known.

I've seen a similar suggestion of macerating a base (Odin's EZ gin for example) and then macerating botanicals one at a time and tasting to see where it ends up, but I can see that being a drawn out process and the idea is to be able to build a sample blend which seems interesting (much as we make test blends when making cuts) and then scale that up to a 500ml / 1 litre maceration which should let me do a lot of experimenting with a wide variety of botanicals without using vast amounts of neutral in potentially fruitless experiments (or finishing with a lot of weird tasting feints that will need refluxing later).

If this is just not going to work under any circumstances then I'll revert to plan B. If no-one has tried it, I'm prepared to be the guinea pig and I'll report back on what I find.

[NZChris]

Sometimes, you have to be the first.

[Demy]

If I understand you talk about an alcoholic tinture .. I tried this method with some herbs and with some fruits (example cherry) the result is interesting but you have to experiment because not all botanists lend themselves to this method, for example if you would do it with Mint could feel the "herbaceous flavor" or in a spice could be too "woody", I think it is indicated for delicate essences that you can't get in distillation while for strong flavors it is better to macerate and then distil. If I understand badly correct me!

[NormandieStill]

If I understand you talk about an alcoholic tinture

That's right. Gin is a re-distilled tincture, and it's possible to have an idea of how the tincture transforms into the spirit. So the plan would be to make a set of tinctures of various botanicals and use them to mix up batches that would be too small to test otherwise. This would allow me to evaluate flavour combinations rapidly in order to arrive at a basic recipe which can then be scaled up and re-distilled to confirm the flavours. By sampling based on the tinctures it should be possible to reduce the trial time required to explore a wide range of recipes in order to better use time on minor tweaks to refine the recipe.

At least that's the idea. At worst it'll cost me 500ml of neutral. At best it'll allow me to explore the 3 or 4 wildly divergent recipe ideas that I have in my head.

Or I'll end up buying some lab glassware and making 100ml batches of gin... but I'm really trying to resist the temptation to buy more stuff!

[howie]

i'll be interested to see how you go.
my initial thoughts are that both methods, tinctures and distilling essences, are time consuming to some extent.
i macerate in a 5l glass flask and like smelling the different aromas pre distilling.
i did think about the different alcohol and temps required to extract flavours, and maybe that pre & post flavours may be slightly different.
i found this site, https://blog.mountainroseherbs.com/guid ... s-extracts
if you can stand his accent, the video of his percolation method is interesting and it lists ABV v different herbs etc.
good luck

[NormandieStill]

if you can stand his accent, the video of his percolation method is interesting and it lists ABV v different herbs etc.
good luck

The video-er seems fairly-er interesting-er, but I do-er wonder-er if I'll-er make-er it-er to-er the-er end-er er!

The obvious Next Level version of this if successful would be to create large volume tinctures and then build the gin directly from these. This would allow playing with different ABVs to get optimum extraction for each botanical... and would be yet another damn rabbit hole that I could disappear into and never return!

Edit to add: If you haven't already seen this thread it's well worth reading through.