Mushroom Gin, anybody tried it?

[MrMeatSweats]

I’m an experienced mushroom forager and I just got my hands on a fat reishi mushroom. I also have a liter of my distilled vodka on hand. I’d like to make a mushroom gin. I’m perfectly capable of just doping it out. But I was curious if anyone had tried it before and how much mushroom you added to macerate. I could only find one available commercial version of this. Anyway, I’d appreciate any tips, if there are none, I’ll let you know how it goes

[tommysb]

Hi MrMeatSweats,

I would suggest distilling the mushroom separately from the other parts of your gin - then you can blend in the 'right' amount of mushroom.

Thinking along the lines of savoury notes, you could do a base with standard quantities of juniper, rosemary etc, and not overcomplicate it (keep it clean and simple).

Then make up some test batches with different blend rates of your mushroom distillate, and see which you like best. Or do a blind tasting with a mate so that what you 'think' you like is not clouding your judgement of what you actually prefer.

[MrMeatSweats]

I think that’s a really good idea. I’ll make a batch of just mushroom liquor and go from there. Then I can actually see what the mushroom tastes like without the juniper. Thanks for the input.

[MrMeatSweats]

So I took a liter of my 50/50 corn and oat vodka and macerated 2 ounces of dried reishi chunks in it for 48 hours. I’m just wrapping up the run through the air still now and I’m pretty happy with it. The oat vodka is already nice and smooth. But the product here smells like what you’d perceive as mushroom, but the flavor is very savory and this will sound weird but almost chocolate or cacao adjacent. I’ve seen reishi flavor described like that before but I never thought so. It definitely comes out in the distillate though. I looked at some baked good recipes that use juniper and it’s paired with chocolate a lot. So I think for the actual gin I’m going to go with reishi, cacao, juniper, hazelnut, Angelica root, and maybe a dried bergamot peel instead of orange. I think this could make a very nice savory chocolate like gin. At any rate, I’m going to proof this down and let it sit a month and then revisit it. I’ll update this post later with my results.

[MooseMan]

Interesting swerve on gin botanicals here!

I'll await further updates.

As a pretty accomplished plant/herb forager myself, I'd love to spend some time with a fungi expert to expand my knowledge.

[tommysb]

Very interesting that you got chocolate notes. A friend who dried and fermented mushrooms had the same , a kind of cacao nibs quality- I think there's really high umami (savoury) in the mushrooms. So really nice to read that you had similar experience!

[MrMeatSweats]

Interesting swerve on gin botanicals here!

I'll await further updates.

As a pretty accomplished plant/herb forager myself, I'd love to spend some time with a fungi expert to expand my knowledge.

I’d get a copy of the Audubons mushroom field guide and go ham if you felt comfortable with your foraging abilities. Just be cautious and start with the varieties that don’t have deadly look alikes. There are a ton of online resources as well.

Very interesting that you got chocolate notes. A friend who dried and fermented mushrooms had the same , a kind of cacao nibs quality- I think there's really high umami (savoury) in the mushrooms. So really nice to read that you had similar experience!

It is odd because it smells like mushroom but taste like chocolate, I’m very curious to see what some rest time does to the flavor profile.
How did your friends mushroom fermentation turn out? I’d be curious to know if it tried to turn into a liquid mycelium culture.

[MrMeatSweats]

Well the mushroom vodka after two months of rest time taste pretty much the same. I still like it

I went ahead and concocted a mushroom gin with half as much mushroom, some cacao, coriander, Angelica root, a small amount of lavender, dried tangerines, and of course juniper. And it’s damn delicious. The mushroom smell is “gone”, but that earthy chocolate flavor is very much present. The juniper plays really nicely with the chocolate and the coriander kinda backs it up as well. I’m very happy with it. I need to run some more versions of it to see how the flavors play with each other. I think next I’ll duplicate this recipe and cut the cacao just to see how much chocolate I’m actually getting from the mushroom, and then two more batches, one sans mushroom and one with neither mushroom or chocolate. Just to get the full effect of what is going on.

Anyway, dessert gin is a success

[NZChris]

To find out how much flavor comes over from mushroom, you could do a mushroom essence run. Load the still with plenty of mushrooms and some nice neutral and do a run.

To make your mushroom gin, make a gin then add your mushroom essence to it until you like it.

[tommysb]

I would be curious to know the recipe (quantities) that you used MrMeatSweats if you're willing to share. It will help others out in the future as a starting point if they have a similar question.

[OtisT]

I would be curious to know the recipe (quantities) that you used MrMeatSweats if you're willing to share. It will help others out in the future as a starting point if they have a similar question.

Mr. Meat shared the quantities in the Nov 5th post. His original recipe used 2 OZ of dried mushroom macerated in 1 liter of corn/oat vodka for 48 hours.