Flavor Enhancers

[oldmonk]

I was wondering if anyone does DIY Flavors or Enhancers for neutrals?

The idea here being that similar to adding glycerin into a neutral to smooth it out, some DIY flavor pack could be added along side to turn a neutral spirit into something like Flavored Vodka or Gin.

One can make flavor packs in advance at one's convenience and just infuse them into neutral, would save time and give consistent taste batch after batch.

Stumbled across the question as I want to use a local berry to flavor a neutral but it's season is just 15 days in summers, and dried berries just don't cut it.

Also, If I had a previously made spirit, how would I go about extracting only flavor out of it so as to use with neutral at later time and use the separated ethanol as solvent to macerate something else.

- OldMonk.

[NZChris]

I regularly flavor neutral by putting it through a mini gin still with the botanicals, but what you are asking sounds like way too much trouble for me.

Extracting the flavor from alcohol to reuse the alcohol for another extraction is way beyond my paygrade and seems pointless if the object of the game is to add the flavor back to alcohol. Distill the fruit with neutral to make an essence strength extraction and put it away for when you need it.

[oldmonk]

I am under impression that essence are further concentrated after adding the botanicals in the solvent. I could be wrong.

Say I take half a KG of orange peels and marcerate them in liter of Neutral, and then distill it, do I have liter (or a little less) of essence? Sufficient to flavour a bunch of other neutral?

[Saltbush Bill]

Say I take half a KG of orange peels and marcerate them in liter of Neutral, and then distill it, do I have liter (or a little less) of essence?

I you take a liter of neutral at 40%..... "the highest ABV that this forum recommends using as a boiler charge"........then you distill it........you wont end up with anywhere near a litre back.
You will end up with a lesser volumn at a higher ABV.
You should end up with an orange essence though.
Ive tasted a very good home made Cointreau Clone that was made in a similar way.
The difference was that the orange skins were dumped into the boiler along with the neutral, from memory there was no maceration beforehand. Starting with good clean neutral it was one run and done....sugar added...then cut to drinking strength.

[Dathhu]

Yeah, I'm with all above.

You can make a concentrated favour bomb, but it will use all the alcohol you put into it. You'll be left with a very high proof, very concentrated flavour addition. If you want that flavour bomb, you've got to give up the alcohol to it and leave whatever is left in the still.

I wouldn't be bothered to try and extract what alcohol is left in the still afterwards.

Neutral is cheap, quick and easy as long as you have the equipment for it.

Search for gin essence. NZChris has spelled it out pretty well. You can make up a big hit at once, then dilute with some neutral.

[oldmonk]

Yeah, I'm with all above.

You can make a concentrated favour bomb, but it will use all the alcohol you put into it. You'll be left with a very high proof, very concentrated flavour addition. If you want that flavour bomb, you've got to give up the alcohol to it and leave whatever is left in the still.

I wouldn't be bothered to try and extract what alcohol is left in the still afterwards.

Neutral is cheap, quick and easy as long as you have the equipment for it.

Search for gin essence. NZChris has spelled it out pretty well. You can make up a big hit at once, then dilute with some neutral.

The idea behind separating the alcohol from the concentrate was to make it compact and easy to carry in check ins. But point taken, its too much hassle.

I'll be proceeding to macerate 20X botanical from London Gin recipe I found here in a liter of Neutral, hoping to flavor 20 liters of neutral at a later date, that is if Neutral is able to absorb it all.

[oldmonk]

Say I take half a KG of orange peels and marcerate them in liter of Neutral, and then distill it, do I have liter (or a little less) of essence?

I you take a liter of neutral at 40%..... "the highest ABV that this forum recommends using as a boiler charge"........then you distill it........you wont end up with anywhere near a litre back.
You will end up with a lesser volumn at a higher ABV.
You should end up with an orange essence though.
Ive tasted a very good home made Cointreau Clone that was made in a similar way.
The difference was that the orange skins were dumped into the boiler along with the neutral, from memory there was no maceration beforehand. Starting with good clean neutral it was one run and done....sugar added...then cut to drinking strength.

Yes, I did read about not charging the pot with more than 40% ABV spirit. I plan of using more neutral than a liter to macerate, once macerated, I'll add more water to bring the ABV less than 30% and then run it thru the pot. Let's see where it takes me.

[NZChris]

The most I've heard of commercials doing is a 10 times essence. The most I've done is 5 times.

Let us know how it goes.

[Demy]

A simple (and colorful) way to flavor is to prepare a tincture, put the botanicals to macerate in neutral alcohol and store them in glass bottles. When it comes add it to your neutral, this will give aroma and color. If you want to keep it transparent you have to distill your neutral together with the botanicals.

[oldmonk]

So, apparently not all botanical like high proof liquor. I got juniper to dominate all, few like cardamom have imparted zero flavour. I took a piece and chewed it. It still has the taste. All peels are done and now taste of nothing.

Looks like I need to steam distill whats left and add that to the essence so as to carry water soluble flavors too.

[NZChris]

Near the end of an essence distillation, you have flavored water and some botanicals left in the pot, (unless you have an offset basket). How tipping the water out and steam distilling the dregs would scavenge more flavor for you I have no idea, unless you were running way too fast.

How long did your distillation take?

Where were the botanicals placed?

[oldmonk]

I haven't ran the maceration yet. The observations I made are just for the maceration.

I don't want to put the botanicals in the pot, I'll now dial down the proof with water, filter the botanicals and place them in the vapor path. Let's see is if vapor can carry over the missing botanicals.

Near the end of an essence distillation, you have flavored water and some botanicals left in the pot, (unless you have an offset basket). How tipping the water out and steam distilling the dregs would scavenge more flavor for you I have no idea, unless you were running way too fast.

How long did your distillation take?

Where were the botanicals placed?