Gin basket for added peat?

[ruminant]

Has anyone tried using a gin basket for adding more peat smoke to their spirit? If so, how did you do it and what were the results?

[WildnWhiskey]

My question is how do you think this would even work? Smoke and/or heat are added to the grain to stop germination during the malting process and any kind will do. The birthplace of whiskey in Scotland and Ireland just didn’t have a lot of fuel sources that they could use back in the day (everything claimed for the nobility) and so they used peat which is just condensed moss and vegetation. Nowadays with industry the peat smoke part of the malting process is just for the flavor it adds but again it’s all done at the malting stage and not really in any way afterwards. Definitely not in the still because you know, needing to be lit on fire + flammable ethanol vapors = bad time.

I would love to know what you think might work because if you have something, as a smokey whiskey lover, I would love to hear how to potentially get even more smoke into my spirit (fam thinks I’m crazy for loving something that tastes like licking a burnt campfire log covered in ham, iodine, and funky cheese).

[still_stirrin]

I’ve heard of entrepreneurs bubbling smoke through a container of spirits to add more smoke character. But to me, that seems “dirty” as the smoke carries ash and other carcinogens in the smoke which would be deposited into the spirits. Sure, they’d give you a good boost in smoke flavors and aroma. But at what “expense”? Not my thing.

Rather, I would look to the recipe to create the “earthy” peat character. And then, if you wanted some smoke quality in the finished spirit, char the wood good before adding to the spirit when aging. And be patient, usually the delicate flavors you’re looking for require a long aging period. Ever wondered why Scotch whiskies are 12 or 18 years, or more, old? Also, consider blending multiple vintages to balance the nuances to individual batches … it’s a common practice the pros use.
ss

[ruminant]

Good points to you both.

As to how I envision this working, if I owned a gin basket, I'd be very tempted to run an experiment filling it with the same heavily peated malt which I'd use for the wash, though I wouldn't grind the barley for the basket. This could be done on the stripping run, the spirit run, or both.

I agree that this is certainly not the way to add peat to a recipe which isn't appropriate in the first place, but if I had a recipe and process I already liked, I still don't think I could resist the temptation to run this experiment with it.