Making spirits without essence

by **lyonacre** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 1:09 am

Greetings!
Hope this is the right place for this
This is probably a daft question but the more I think about it the more confused I get.
I had a visit to the Plymouth Gin factory over the Christmas period which started me thinking about making my own gin rather than making vodka and adding a bottle of essence.
The basic Plymouth story is that they buy in pure ethanol, bung it in a vat and put in their secret mix of herbs and spices, water it down with the local spring water, mix it all up, put it in a pot still and distil it.
The result strong Plymouth gin that they ware down to either navy or normal strength.
Can I do the same by making clean spirit with my T500, adding my own secret blend, and then running it through the T500 again?
Or will all the flavour be taken out because it is a reflux not a pot?
If I used my air still for the final still would that me like using a pot still or would that strip everything too?
And the same set of questions about trying to make rum from scratch using molasses instead of sugar in the wash?

by **MrCat** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 1:40 am

if you re-distil the secret blend in the T500 it will strip all the flavour out because as you say it\'s a reflux still.
From what I have read the airstill is basically a pot still so it should do what you want. The best way is to try it out

I use a molasses wash (recipe 2) now rather than turbo yeast as the results are much cleaner and sweeter. I initially strip the wash in my ss reflux with the packing removed and the reflux jacket disconnected. It comes out initially at about 60-70% and has a lovely sweet molasses smell. I kept about 300ml from the middle of the last run and have mixed it with a little glycerine and it makes an unusual drink. It smells fantastic, sweet taste initially but then quite rough and sharp.
One worth experimenting with to be sure

by **hic52** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 3:09 pm

I tried putting some of my wifes wine through the airstill before christmas as she makes loads of wine but she was not 100% happy with one batch, I ended up with what resembled a clear spirit which had a slight tannin taste but did not keep the wine flavour.
So I would say it does keep some of the taste but not a noticeable quantity.
As I have now stopped using as much essence and started using 20% of the spirit you want ie: 20% true whisky if you want that taste.

I did this with the spirit and compared it with a sugar wash finished whisky plus compared with the true whisky and although a slight difference in taste, but only just, its still a pleasant taste and no \"back taste\"
I would say go on experimenting !!

by **phlogiston** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 3:51 pm

You certainly can make gin in this way in an airstill. I used some of my own more-or-less neutral spirit with added "botanicals" to make sloe gin last year, then steam-distilled the leftover sloes. The resulting gin was very pleasant. Lots of the flavour comes over into the distillate. You can of course miss out the sloe infusion step :-)
[edit] PS worth going to artisandistillers.org -- lots of advice and recipes there for making your own gin.

by **lyonacre** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 2:26 am

Many thanks for the help