Gin is a flavoured alcoholic drink that derives its predominant flavour from juniper berries. Gin drinks also typically contain extracts of other botanical ingredients such as hops, angelica root, coriander seeds, and sweet orange peel.
Tips on how to flavour your own gin
Below are tips on how to flavour your own gin.
- Choose a good base
To make your flavoured gin drink as strong, you can use a good quality base alcohol or grain alcohol as the basis for your drink. The appropriate amount of alcohol depends upon the person’s taste and purpose.
- Use gin recipe flavours
There are a variety of recipes to flavour your own gin, some of which require only a few ingredients while others require more. If you wish to avoid hard-to-find flavouring ingredients, you can use ready-made flavours such as those found in Gin & Tonic kits amongst others. The recipe of your choice can be found on the internet or in a printed book.
- Add botanical flavours to your drink
Add botanicals that are good for flavouring, such as the ones mentioned earlier. You will want to add them before you add the extract or infusion.
- Use it for cocktails that require flavouring
You can use your gin flavoured base to make a variety of cocktails that require flavouring such as martinis, quinine martinis, and more. Also, add some fruit juice to it and drink it with ice cubes and soda water for a refreshing drink on hot summer days when you feel like having cocktail but do not have time to prepare one yourself.
- Gift it to your friends
If you want to give it as a gift, you can bottle the drink, which is much easier than bottling an infusion. Do not forget to label and date the bottle. You can add in some edible flowers from your garden for decoration if desired.
- Decant it into a bottle
To enjoy your drink as soon as it is done, you can decant the finished product into a bottle of your choice immediately after mixing everything together. To do this, simply use a funnel and pour everything through a coffee filter to remove any debris or sediment and keep out anything that might have floated up during bottling time. The coffee filter will also help to keep your bottle clean.
- Label and date it
Make sure that you label and date your drink before you store it away in a cool place. This will help you to know when the drink is ready to drink and to tell if any ingredient needs replacing over time. If the drink remains clear, then it is ready to drink but if it turns cloudy, then the ingredients need replacing or some flavouring needs to be added again.
Conclusion
Flavouring your own gin can be a wonderful experience. You can try out all kinds of flavours and see what you like most by keeping the liquid in the fridge. Each drink is unique, but the basic ingredients such as water, alcohol, and botanicals are always the same. Do not forget to take note of your observations on how these ingredients affect your drink before you decide to try other flavours which may be different from what you are accustomed to.