Feijoa Gin Recipe

As you will have seen in earlier posts, now that I am making my own alcohol (see Making Alcohol: 3 Ways) I decided that it would be fun to try making some different fruit liqueurs. I have previously made Feijoa Vodka by macerating the feijoas in the vodka for several months. This time I added gin botanicals to the macerating feijoas, however the result was a rather unappetising brown colour. So the time had come for me to experiment with distilling after maceration which would give a clear spirit with a lighter fruity flavour.

Gin distillers use various combinations of maceration before and after distilling to create a wide range of flavours. Because I had previously made a simple feijoa vodka, I decided to try combining it this time with my favourite citrus spice gin blend to see what it would turn out like. I poured the brown coloured feijoa spirit into the pot of my copper still and put the citrus spice blend in a muslin bag in the column of the still. I captured the resulting flavoured ethanol until the alcohol dropped to 20% and funky flavours were starting to appear. I then diluted the alcohol back down to 40% alcohol by volume (ABV).

I was very pleasantly surprised with the result: there is quite a strong fruity feijoa flavour that is almost sweet on the palate. It makes a very refreshing and different gin & tonic.