Unit 5 Gin

Question 1

What are the two methods of Gin production?

Answer 1

Distilled Gin
Compound gin (which is not distilled)

Question 2

Describe distilled gin

Answer 2

Produced by distilling the botanicals along with the base spirit, condensing the vapours and collecting the resulting spirit.

London dry gin must be distilled to 70% alc from a NBS and have a max of o.1g of sugar per L.

Can’t have more than 5g per hL of 100% ABV spirit.

Question 3

Describe compound in

Answer 3

adding concentrated essences to neutral spirit. These essences can be: ethanol or Co2 extracts of the essential oils from individual botanicals or as a mixture of them all.

Question 4

What are three ways of adding botanicals?

Answer 4

Add the botanicals directly to the spirit in the pot (sometimes in a sack to make cleaning easier).

Add the botanicals to a vapour basket, which is positioned so that hot alcohol vapours can pass through.

A combination of the two methods.

Question 5

What’s the most common method of the addition of the botanicals to the spirit?

Answer 5

The most common method is to macerate in cool 50% abv neutral spirit for 12-24 h before distillation.

Question 6

What are the two things the heads coming off the still are carrying?

Answer 6

Some of the oils left from the previous run. These are often bitter and unpleasant.

Botanical oils from the current run that are highly volatile and alcohol soluble. Once again, they may not be entirely pleasant.

Question 7

How long does the hearts run for?

Answer 7

Until the distillate is about 30% abv

Question 8

Why may the tails look cloudy?

Answer 8

due to alcohol soluble oils coming out of the solution at lower alcohol levels.

Question 9

What two solvents are used to extract the oils?

Answer 9

Ethanol - if oil concentration too low, we can evaporate the alcohol to concentrate the oil
Liquid CO2 - needs to be really cold put into a pressurised vessel and increase the pressure until CO2 is in a liquid state - temp is maintained 33C

Steam and vacuum distillation are also used to extract essential oils for use in compound gin.

Question 10

What makes a good gin?

Answer 10

The dominant aroma and flavour should be juniper.

The supporting flavours and aromas coming from the base spirit and the botanicals should be in balance with the juniper character.

The gin should be clear. A slight cloudiness might be acceptable, but consumers do not usually accept hazy gin.

Gin is often used in cocktails and is rarely consumed neat. In other words, a good gin according to most consumers should make martinis and gin and tonics that most consumers would enjoy.

Question 11

To succeed as distillers what do we need to do?

Answer 11

Find out what most consumers want

Design a gin that provides this

Set a specification for the aspects of the gin that affect it

Ensure the gin is always in specification