Making Gin at Home

Making gin at home was never something I thought I could do without having a still. If you’ve been following my blog you will know that I love to try making different things and have tried my hand at making wine, cider, beer, ginger beer, limoncello and more. But as far as I knew spirits needed to be distilled so when I saw a Handcrafted Gin Kit at Mad Millie I had to give it a go.

The recipe couldn’t be simpler:
Pour 1 litre of vodka into a jar.
Add the botanicals and leave to steep for 24 hours.
Strain the botanicals out using a filter paper lined funnel.
Bottle and label.

I’ve since been researching and discovered that gin in its most basic form is simply a neutral base spirit (usually made from grain but not always) which is flavoured with botanicals (juniper must be the dominant botanical).

Whilst commercial gin makers extract the flavours from their botanicals through distillation, it is very possible to make gin simply by ‘steeping’ them in the base spirit.

So this means that it is very possible to make your own gin at home, using vodka and adding botanicals of your own choosing (including juniper berries of course).

I have discovered a vast range of different recipes for gin botanicals, such as:

Mad Millie’s botanical blend included: juniper berries, coriander seeds, citrus peels (lemon, orange) and liquorice root. This purports to be London Dry Gin.

Recipe 1
2 tbsp juniper berries
1 tsp coriander seeds
Dried peel of 2 grapefruits
Dried peel of 1 lemon
Dried peel of 1 orange
4 cloves
1/2 tsp angelica root
1/4 tsp cassia bark
1/4 tsp fennel seeds

Recipe 2
2 tbsp juniper berries
1 tsp coriander seeds
2 cardamom pods
2 peppercorns
Half a cinnamon stick
A small piece of orange peel (pith removed)
A small piece of lemon peel (pith removed)

Beyond the vodka and the juniper berries, it seems you can experiment with whatever botanicals you like. Some of the most commonly used are coriander seed, angelica root, citrus peel and cassia bark or cinnamon – but as one gin club says: “feel free to raid the spice cabinet and herb garden. You could try bay leaves, rosemary, liquorice powder, lavender, cardamom, cumin, fennel seeds, lemongrass…pretty much anything you fancy!”

Using the steeping method, the botanicals can give the gin a yellow or orange tinge but it doesn’t affect the taste. If you are a purist, you can pass it through a water jug filter a few times to get a more professional looking spirit but to my mind that defeats the ‘handcrafted’ approach.

The various recipes vary slightly – some steep for only 12 hours, others put the spices in for 24 hours and then add fresh peels and leave for another 24 hours. One site referred to the process as being a bit like making a cup of tea – you don’t want to get tempted to ‘over-steep’ it.

I don’t usually drink a lot of spirits but I like the challenge of experimenting with different botanical blends so I think my gift hampers might be including homemade gin this year :-).

The Mad Millie Kit includes a 1 litre jar, 2x 500ml bottles (I love the shape), a funnel, filter paper and the botanical mix. You do need to supply your own vodka. You could give the Kit to someone as a gift if you didn’t want the fun of making the gin yourself and giving the results as a gift.