alcohol free GIN

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zamo27
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alcohol free GIN

Post by zamo27 »

this might be silly for most especially here but alcohol free gin is an option here in ireland on good friday so i want to make some.

i successfully make some gin and i have a bang on botanical recipe which i would like to use but this time alcohol free

what would i need to put in my pot still to infuse the gin flavour botanicals??

i was thinking a simple sugar solution of equal amounts of sugar to water??

any thoughts?
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der wo
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by der wo »

Why sugar?
I would use pure water.
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by cuginosgrizzo »

no way! you are going to scorch everything with water and sugar in the pot. And the sugar doesn't pass in distillation so there's no point to using it. Use just plain old water.

But what the heck is a alcohol free gin? just herb flavoured water? you probabily need some sugar to balance the herb. I would do this:

Put botanicals in hot water to sterilize them, let it all cool and macerate in the water for some time, then strain and distill the water. Mix the distilled "gin water" with a simple syrup (not too much or you'll cover too much the botanicals). Let it rest for one week, drink.

dunno what could come out, this is uncharted territory! if you try let us know!

posting with dw
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by jb-texshine »

zamo27 wrote:this might be silly for most especially here but alcohol free gin is an option here in ireland on good friday so i want to make some.

i successfully make some gin and i have a bang on botanical recipe which i would like to use but this time alcohol free

what would i need to put in my pot still to infuse the gin flavour botanicals??

i was thinking a simple sugar solution of equal amounts of sugar to water??

any thoughts?
Tea...you wanna make tea :wtf: ... :idea: :idea: :idea: thats what its called,juniper tea! :think:
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Kareltje
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by Kareltje »

I agree with cuginosgrizzo and Der Wo: sugar in your still is no use, for it does not distill and probably will scorch. And making tea is not enough: you want the clear, white liquid.

I wonder how much of the flavour and taste will come over.
In an extended run of alcoholic gin I pushed on with 100 degr C and got a liquid with some green-blue skin on it, a bit sticky. But then of course all the other stuff was already collected. (Oh: and I had started maceration at about 80 %.)
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by Badmotivator »

One option not mentioned yet is to actually make the gin, then gently heat it to eliminate the alcohol. You will lose some of the flavor to the vapor, but surely some will remain in the water?
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by Kareltje »

Nice idea.
In effect you then use the backset of a (gentle) distillation.
It will be coloured and not clear, I guess.
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by Snackson »

Kareltje wrote:Nice idea.
In effect you then use the backset of a (gentle) distillation.
It will be coloured and not clear, I guess.
I think BadMo meant using the gin that has been made, and heating to allow alcohol to evaporate.
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NZChris
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by NZChris »

Use plenty of botanicals, put water in and run it to make an essence. Use the essence to make your alcohol free gin, or mix with neutral to make gin.
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Kareltje
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by Kareltje »

Snackson wrote:
Kareltje wrote:Nice idea.
In effect you then use the backset of a (gentle) distillation.
It will be coloured and not clear, I guess.
I think BadMo meant using the gin that has been made, and heating to allow alcohol to evaporate.
Yes, my bad reading. Sorry! :oops:
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bitter
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by bitter »

Might want to look into essential oils.. mix them in water.. to get a gin like taste.

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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by willee »

I dont know ... they have been trying to make beer with no alcohol and get it to taste right ... but it is just never the same taste without the ethanol.
I would suspect the same would be true trying to get gin flavored water to taste anything near the real thing.
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by Pikey »

The nearest thing you can get to an "alcohol bite" is tonic water. You could try ditilling tonic water with your botanicals. OR else make the gin in the normal way, send that over to me for disposal and drink the backset ! :D :D :D
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Corsaire
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by Corsaire »

So I'm reviving this thread since lately I've been wondering about alcohol free gin as well. Don't get me wrong, I still love alcohol, I've got some rum wash bubbling merrily away and put some bourbon on oak which I won't open till my firstborn child is born. Which isn't very far off. The missus quite misses her g&t, so I would like to make some non-alcoholic gin for her.

You can buy the stuff over here, it's called Seedlip and was made by a guy who doesn't drink. He claims he found a copy of an old distilling handbook and now sells three kinds of alcohol free gin.

The book can be found online here. http://www.levity.com/alchemy/jfren_ar.html
It's entertaining, if you want to know how a compound water of the sperm of frogs is made, then the book has got you covered.

The problem is there's no faux gin recipe in it. Apparently Seedlip distills and filters each ingredient separately to then mix the result. Does anyone have any experience with this? I'd like to get some pointers in the right direction.
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DetroitDIY
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by DetroitDIY »

Hey Corsaire,

I'm like you, I do love my proper distillations, but I also like regular fermentations of all kinds, beverage and food, heavily alcoholic and essentially non-alcoholic. And I've been reading up and procuring some things for essential oils. But also like you, my wife has recently been exploring a no alcohol diet (for health reasons, our kids are grown :) ), and she showed me an article a while back on the Seedlip and asked me what can I do to replicate. I'd ignored the request for a few months, and am now finally getting to think about it.

Seems like from the oldest posts on this (at least in this thread... I haven't looked too deep in HD on this topic), I think the first three had it (collectively) right. Either steep the botanicals in a hot water and distill it, or distill water through a botanical basket. Then add sugar or such to your content. In fact, the article on Seedlip I was reading said that it was for mixers, not as a straight beverage. Could be he's doing essential oils too... essentially distillation of the botanicals with water, collecting a wee bit of essential oil and much more hydrosol. Could be that he's using a mixture of all of the above if he's blending individual components as you say. Doing that with separate essential oils is how I understand many perfumes are produced (and other scented products).

Anyways, I'm interested, and may try exactly this if/when I build a little essential oil still (my proper still is not the right tool for the amount of plant material I have available :wtf: ). If you've gone any further with this since you post 5 months ago, please let me know.

Cheers!
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by NZChris »

NZChris wrote: Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:28 am Use plenty of botanicals, put water in and run it to make an essence. Use the essence to make your alcohol free gin, or mix with neutral to make gin.
I tried that and it didn't work for me. Nowhere near enough flavor came across. I saved the botanicals by putting everything back in the still with some 95% and re-running it.
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by NZChris »

You could try putting a simmered steep through something like Granucol FA to decolorize it, but I won't be doing that experiment for you.
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by hellbilly007 »

I have zero experience in this. My suggestion would be to make a gin with alcohol (traditional, be it vapor infused or steeped) and redistill it using a vacuum still. I think this will preserve the blend of flavors by keeping the temperature lower than normal distillation
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by pope »

What you are wanting to make is essential oils, without the alcohol they won't stay in suspension in the water they'll just float on top. You'll get hydrosols but I wouldn't want to drink those I think. YMMV. There might be food grade emulsifiers you could use to get the oils back in with the water. But alcohol works pretty well and is pretty cheap, if you don't want to drink on an occasion I say just make tea or drink water haha.
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by RC Al »

Just as a pointer, have a google of medieval cordial recipes, there would be many different processes covered, but you might find some gold with a good look
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by NZChris »

Her Indoors has just given me the 'thumbs up' for a G&T made using a five times strength essence that I made by packing the boiler and basket with five times the normal amount of botanicals. It's not alcohol free, but the ratio of juniper etc. in her glass is about the same as usual.
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by Canuckwoods »

NZChris wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2020 10:26 pm Her Indoors has just given me the 'thumbs up' for a G&T made using a five times strength essence that I made by packing the boiler and basket with five times the normal amount of botanicals. It's not alcohol free, but the ratio of juniper etc. in her glass is about the same as usual.
So are you using 1/5 oz in the drink? would it not work to then dilute this with 5X the water so proportions would be the same?
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by NZChris »

It's a 1:4 ratio to make up a five times essence. I made hers using a 1/5 oz and no water.

I just made up a 1:4 sample with water. It smells nice, but louched like crazy, so it isn't pretty. I haven't made a G&T with it yet.

I don't know how well it would keep because the abv isn't high enough to inhibit bacteria. I've got it sitting on a window sill where I can watch it to see if oils separate out.
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by cayars »

Good info NZChris,

Keep us updated on how this works out.
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by NZChris »

After a month of being ignored because nobody wanted to try it, it cleared and is looking quite nice. A G&T made with it, barely tastes like a G&T and wouldn't fool anybody.
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by Corsaire »

Sounds like seedlip all right ;-)
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by SouthwestAl »

Old thread, I know, but..>

I have been looking into this recently, and the main issue is the Juniper - it really isn't soluble in water, or Glycerol (VG), and not that soluble in Propylene Glycol (PG) either. The other botanicals can mostly be made into extracts using VG or PG, and PG is generally better from what I am seeing.

Juniper really needs the Ethanol as a solvent. If you were to run it in a vacum still, for example, and evaporate the Ethanol, what would remain would have the Pinene compounds in it, along with the water, but they would separate. From the Art Of Drink channel on YouTube, which recently had a video on using PG/VG as solvents:

"The issue is that the pinene in juniper has a maximum solubility of 4 mg/L in water (less at cold temperatures), and pinene is just like oil and oil and water do not mix. Given time, the oils (pinene) will separate out and float on top. Gin is typically in the 80 to 95 mg/L which is at least 20X more than what is soluble in water.

The only way to get oil in water is to create a stable emulsion. That requires an emulsifier (edible soap) and preferably a high-shear rotor/stator mixer, which can be quite expensive."

So, while you can make a zero-alcohol botanical drink fairly easily at home, with all your favourite Gin botanicals, it is NOT easy to flavour it with Juniper, short of using a store-bought Juniper extract. It might be a better option to make the botanical drink, and then make a 'juniper bitters' or extract to drop a little into each drink or not, on the understanding that the bitters will have alcohol in them.
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by NZChris »

Asking a home distiller to make an alcohol free gin makes about as much sense as asking a BBQ aficionado to make a vegan guest a meat free sausage.

Sometimes, we just have to say, 'No, if you want that, bring your own'.
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by EricTheRed »

NZChris wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 10:00 pm Asking a home distiller to make an alcohol free gin makes about as much sense as asking a BBQ aficionado to make a vegan guest a meat free sausage.

Sometimes, we just have to say, 'No, if you want that, bring your own'.
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Re: alcohol free GIN

Post by Saltbush Bill »

NZChris wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 10:00 pm Asking a home distiller to make an alcohol free gin makes about as much sense as asking a BBQ aficionado to make a vegan guest a meat free sausage.
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