Craft Gin Making E-Book

Rachel Hicks

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 210

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Craft Gin Making is a detailed guide to entering the world of gin production. For beginners and experienced producers alike, it offers key insights and practical advice on what you need to get started and how to progress in this fascinating and growing craft. It covers both distilling and cold compounding, providing advice on equipment and detailing step-by-step processes, whilst discussing a wide variety of gin production issues. Topics covered include a brief history of gin and gin making; the tools, equipment and ingredients needed for the different methods of producing gin; the most common methods and how to achieve success in them; the practicalities of filtration, bottling, sealing and labelling; making flavoured gins; why things might go wrong and how to correct them and, finally, the legal aspects of gin production.

Leseprobe

CRAFT GINMAKING

CRAFT GINMAKING

Rachel Hicks and Andrew Parsons

First published in 2021 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

[email protected]

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2021

© Rachel Hicks and Andrew Parsons 2021

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 815 3

CONTENTS

Preface

About the Authors

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1

A Brief History of Gin

2

Ingredients, Tools and Equipment for Making Gin

3

Production Methods

4

The Components of Gin

5

How to Make Gin

6

Filtration, Bottling, Sealing and Labelling

7

Flavoured Gins

8

When Things Go Wrong

9

Licence to Distil

10

The Future of Gin

Recommended Suppliers

Index

PREFACE

It’s been quite a ride! Just eighteen short months, from attending gin school to our signature gin being crowned the World’s Best Contemporary Gin at the 2020 World Gin Awards, and it has been utterly exhilarating. Along the way we have learnt so much about the art and science of craft gin making, and we’re delighted to share it with you here.

We have also made many mistakes, from getting the alcohol content horribly wrong to having so much essential oil from the botanicals that our gin turned the colour of milk. We offer all of this to you here, so that you might learn from our experience.

But more important to us than all of this technical knowledge is that we have met some amazing people. Amazing in their skill, amazing in their dedication, amazing in their devotion to their craft, but even more amazing in their willingness to share all of that with anyone who asks. The craft gin industry really is full of people, old and young, who are highly passionate about what they do, and are delighted to share it with anyone who wants to listen. This book is also for them, and to thank them for welcoming us so warmly into the community.

This community is kind, generous and helpful. Take the moment when we were let down by our bottle suppliers who sent bottles but forgot to include corks, four days before the year’s biggest gin festival. We had no product to sell. Our neighbouring distillery – and competitor – offered to send us anything we needed. Take also the wonderful ‘maverick distiller’ who regularly gave of his time and advice (and still does) out of pure love of his craft, to help us solve many of the problems that we hope to help you avoid in this book.

We’d like to think we are now giving some of that back, in the phone calls we regularly take, and the questions in emails that we regularly respond to. This book is part of that. So whether you are an armchair gin lover wanting to know a little more about his or her favourite tipple, or a budding distiller hoping to join the blessed ranks of award-winning master distillers, this book is for you. Take a nip of your favourite juniper-based spirit, sit back, and enjoy.

Rachel Hicks and Andrew Parsons,Distillers and Co-FoundersSky Wave GinBucknell, Oxfordshire, April 2020

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Rachel Hicks is a founder, partner and distiller at Sky Wave Gin, the multi award-winning artisan craft gin company based in Oxfordshire, whose London Dry Gin was crowned ‘The World’s Best Contemporary Gin’ at the highly prestigious 2020 World Gin Awards. Working daily in the distillery she is responsible for the research, creation and launch of two new flavoured gins. She combines her love of distilling and developing new products with her qualification in Food Technology to evolve new spirits. Rachel runs half-marathons for fun, and once drove across the Sahara Desert in a car she bought for £50.

The authors (centre) accepting the award for The World’s Best Contemporary Gin, at the World Gin Awards 2020, London.

Andrew Parsons is also a founder and partner, and the Master Distiller at Sky Wave Gin. As an engineer by profession, Andrew’s expertise is in the science of distilling. He has defined and documented the strict production processes used in the distillery, refining them over time to produce the perfect spirit. At one time or another he has encountered, analysed and solved all the problems described in this book! Andrew takes great pride in the gins they produce, and is always keen and willing to pass on his knowledge to others. He regularly speaks at events for gin enthusiasts on the science and art of gin distilling. He is also a rock drummer, kiteboarder and qualified military mountaineering instructor.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We’d like to mention a few names here, of people we’d like to think of as friends, as a ‘thank you’. If we’ve forgotten anyone it is entirely our fault and absolutely no reflection on the level of help or support given, not only as we have written this book but also as we have adventured on our craft distilling journey over the last few years. This list is also in no particular order. To you all, thank you for your welcome and support, and the camaraderie you have shared with us.

Mary and Richard Bateman at Twisting Spirits Distillery

Alex Jungmayr at In The Welsh Wind Distillery

Barney Wilczak at Capreolus Distillery

The team at The Oxford Artisan Distillery

All at the Chalgrove Artisan Distillery

Anne and Jean-Louis at Saint Amans Gin

The team at Papillon Gin, Dartmoor

Debbie Burgess, online gin blogger

Richard Harknett, online gin blogger

All the team at The White Horse, Kings Sutton, Northamptonshire

Melanie and Lucas Boissevain at Penally Abbey Hotel, Pembrokeshire

Finally, a huge thank you to our army of tasters – some professional, a few family, many friends – who have offered their advice along the way.

PICTURE CREDITS

All images are by the authors, except those on the following pages: 9 David Greenwood-Haigh/Pixabay; 10 (top) DCISR; 13 (left) David Mark/Pixabay; 13 (right) Wellcome Images; 14 Wellcome Images; 15 (left) Cocktailtime/Pixabay; 32 (top) The Papillon Dartmoor Distillery; 32 (bottom) In the Welsh Wind Distillery; 33 (left) Innviertlerin/Pixabay; 37 Twisting Spirits Ltd; 40 (bottom) Bronislaw Drózka; 65 (top) Hans Braxmeir/Pixabay; 65 (bottom left) Scozzy/Pixabay; 69 Rob Luke; 70 (right) Jenny Walker); 71 (top) Debbie Burgess; 72 Holly Killick; 75 (middle) Jenny Walker; 75 (bottom) Anne and Saturnino Miranda/Pixabay; 79 (bottom) Pastel100/Pixabay; 80 Holly Killick; 82 Craig Melville/Pixabay; 83 (both) Debbie Burgess; 84 ML991/Pixabay; 107 Bridgesward/Pixabay; 109 Cocktailtime/Pixabay; 115 Daniel Beckett; 116 (bottom) Rob Luke; 119 Elephant Gin; 121 (top) Cocktailtime/Pixabay; 121 (bottom) Viktorija Zan.

INTRODUCTION

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

At the very start of a gin-making adventure there is a surprising discovery: gin begins as a form of vodka.

Traditional copper alembic pot stills used for the distillation of gin.

It becomes gin through distillation or cold compounding with one essential ingredient: juniper. To be called a ‘gin’, juniper must be the predominant flavour. Alongside this a huge array of botanicals is used to give the many different brands of gin their distinct flavours, recipes that are kept close to the distillers’ hearts.

Distilled gin is defined as being a spirit that is produced by redistilling ethanol of agricultural origin, for example grain, potato, or some other ‘thing that grows’. This base spirit can have a strength of up to 97 per cent ABV (‘alcohol by volume’); at this strength it is harmful to ingest and can cause serious skin and eye irritation. It is distilled in traditional, often copper stills, which can vary from small 2ltr varieties to large 12,000ltr ones, and with a range of natural plant materials where juniper is the predominant ingredient.

To produce a London Dry Gin, which will be the main focus of this book, only water may be added to the distillate after it has come off the still. It must also have a minimum strength of 37.5 per cent ABV. Cold compounding is the alternative method of creating gin, where the botanicals are added to the neutral spirit, so no distilling takes place. This method will be discussed in more detail later. However, distilled London Dry Gin is considered to be the gold standard of gin making, as the skill lies in the distiller getting the recipe right the first time, as nothing can be added afterwards.

The well-known modern-day gin originates from ‘Genever’, a Dutch spirit made with juniper berries and usually aged in casks. It arrived in this country from Holland in the seventeenth century. It was a huge hit, but with serious consequences that took 200 years to unpick.

Juniper berries are the key botanical in gin.

Experiencing the warmth of gin lovers at Sky Wave Gin’s stall at Eweleaze Farm, Dorset.

So why has there been such an explosion of craft gins recently? This is a tale of David and Goliath – a couple of centuries of history versus some bright young sparks who wanted to make gin. Their story is compelling, and changed the face of gin production in the UK. They took on the law, enforced by HMRC, and won, opening the gates to craft gin making, which has seen such a boom in the UK and across the world. You can read more about it in Chapter 1, but suffice to say, we have them to thank for the incredible range of gins and myriad craft gin distilleries that have sprung up in Britain since their historic victory in 2008.

This book will delve into the world of craft gin distilling, through our own experience of starting and establishing a successful craft gin company, and by way of the stories shared from other craft gin distillers. The distilling world is generally a very close and supportive community, which helps businesses thrive. The standard process of craft gin distilling, in relation to the London Dry standard, will be discussed, alongside other types of distilling processes such as ‘bathtub’, the equipment you need, the extensive range of botanicals from which you can choose, the bottles, the labelling, and how it all works together. However, with every successful distillation day there are always lessons to be learned, so you’ll be able to read about troubleshooting, when things don’t go quite as you expect.

So you may be raring to go now, with great ideas for a unique flavour profile and an arresting name for your gin. But don’t forget about licensing, because not only is it illegal to make even the smallest amount of gin on, say, your kitchen table for your own consumption, but there are actually at least six licences to be acquired if you intend to sell your creation. And an exam to sit. And an interview with HMRC. This is all covered later in the book.

There are many licences that must be obtained in order to be able to start distilling – the personal licence is just one of them.

So, if you are an armchair gin enthusiast, or a passionate gin entrepreneur with aspirational thoughts of producing your own spirit, then please read on to learn all about the process, with hints and tips along the way and a bit of history for good measure.

CHAPTER 1

A BRIEF HISTORY OF GIN

The history of gin is as colourful as it is long. About 2,000 years ago, as England struggled in the grip of the Roman Empire, it is believed that a Greek physician created a medicine using juniper berries steeped in wine. He swore it fought off chest infections. A thousand years later Italian monks were found to have a medicinal tonic wine infused with juniper berries.

By the sixteenth century the innovative Dutch were producing a spirit called ‘genever’, the forefather of our modern gin. The big difference is that it was produced by distilling malt wine to 50 per cent ABV. This meant the final product was so unpalatable due to the crude distilling methods available, that junipers and herbs were used to mask its revolting flavour. But it took off, and soon was one of the most popular drinks in the Netherlands.

England, by comparison, was a little late to the party. The gin boom hit England at the end of the 1600s. King William of Orange (of the Netherlands) became King of England, Ireland and Scotland in 1689. In order to bring a little bit of home with him, he introduced Dutch gin, together with new laws allowing for tax breaks on spirit production due to the fortuitous surplus of grain harvests.

King William III of Orange introduced Dutch gin to England in the 1600s.

A busy gin palace bar with customers buying drinks.

Even before the Dutch spirit became widespread across the country, our armed forces, fighting abroad, already had some awareness of its seemingly enviable properties. British sailors witnessed Dutch soldiers with a bottle of the spirit continually to hand, and noted how they seemed braver in battle – and the British sailors wanted a bit of that ‘Dutch courage’. Fortunately for them, it was now easily accessible when they returned from their expeditions. Back home, cheaply distilled spirits, flavoured with juniper and herbs to cover the rough flavour, was the new business phenomenon. Dozens upon dozens of gin houses quickly sprang up, as the latest opportunity to make money was seized upon. The drink was an instant hit, and the London gin craze was about to begin.

THE GIN CRAZE

By the mid-1700s gin distillation had reached epidemic levels and was causing serious problems. The poor were drinking the new affordable gin to excess. It helped to mask the misery of their difficult lives, and from a practical point of view, it helped ward off the feelings of cold experienced by the destitute.

A sense of nationalism also boosted the popularity of gin across the country. The people of England turned their backs on French brandy, partly due to the expense, but also partly because of the political and religious conflict existing between France and England at the time.

The gin boom was blamed for debauched behaviour, especially among the poor: The drunkard's children by George Cruikshank.

The huge surge in gin drinking was also driven by the lack of any kind of legal requirements governing who could make and sell gin. The lack of regulation or qualifications needed to create gin fired the boom in production, as anyone with a pot or a bathtub could create a potent product to sell. Unlike today, a would-be distiller didn’t need a licence to start his business. Gin distillation became a free-for-all, with all sorts of rogue ingredients being used in the process, including turpentine, sulphuric acid and even sawdust. In London alone more than 10 million gallons of gin were being distilled every year. By 1721, Middlesex magistrates were decrying gin as ‘the principal cause of all the vice and debauchery committed among the inferior sort of people’.

Mother’s Ruin

The easy availability and affordability of gin led to many women drinking it, more so than any other of the more expensive spirits. It contributed to their children being neglected, daughters sold into a life of prostitution, and even babies being given gin to quieten them. The horrific spell under which London’s poor had fallen was keenly portrayed in a print by Hogarth called Gin Lane. This shows a drunken woman with ulcerated legs taking snuff as her baby falls into the gin vault below. Gin was described as ‘the opium of the people’ by the historical writer Ellen Castelow in her essay Mother’s Ruin on the online site historic-uk.com. Many would do whatever it took to get their ‘fix’ of gin, which kept them warm in the bitter London winters and allayed their hunger pangs. At the time, the huge amount of rough gin being consumed was linked to male impotency and female sterility, which was considered to be the reason for the death rate exceeding the birth rate in the capital at this time.

The etching Gin Lane, by William Hogarth, is set in the parish of St Giles London, a notorious slum district that the artist depicted in several works around this time. Gin Lane depicts the squalor and despair of a community raised on gin.

The 1751 Gin Act

The government had a crisis on its hands. By 1730 it was horrified to discover that the average Londoner drank 14 gallons of spirits each year. Six thousand houses in London were selling gin to anyone who could pay the cheap prices. But this was having a ruinous effect on the population, who suffered ill health and madness through addiction, and drove up crime and prostitution rates.

By 1730 the average Londoner drank 14 gallons of spirits each year.

In 1751 the Gin Act was passed, its intention being to crack down on the consumption of spirits. It required distillers to have a licence, and allowed them only to sell to licensed retailers. As a result, the production of better quality gin increased, and consumption certainly fell. London distilleries strove to produce improved gin, and the capital became known for the quality of its product, hence the term ‘London Dry’, which is today held as the pinnacle of gin production. At the same time the traditional drink of the nation, beer, was being promoted again, alongside the consumption of tea. By the early part of the nineteenth century the price of beer was lower than that of gin for the first time in over a hundred years, and the gin craze was over. For now…

THE END OF THE GIN ACT

The 1751 Gin Act had huge repercussions, which stretched over 200 years. It changed the profile of gin drinkers from the poorest, who consumed it in huge quantities, desperate for the escapism it offered, to a drink that was sipped by the smarter classes wanting to enjoy the now more expensive and refined tipple. It also changed the way it could be made. The 1751 Gin Act banned production in any still with a capacity of less than 1,800 litres. So the thousands of small, illicit gin-production houses were now breaking the law and they went out of business, making way for large-scale businesses that monopolized production. Gordon’s, Greenhall and Plymouth gin were all first distilled in the second half of the eighteenth century. Nothing much changed, then, for over 200 years – until 2008.

Two lifelong friends, Sam Galsworthy and Fairfax Hall, who wanted to revive the outstanding quality of London Dry Gin by opening their own distillery in the capital, discovered they couldn’t, as they weren’t big enough. But they refused to accept that they had to distil a minimum of 1,800 litres as the law required them to. They were up against the big boys, and they wanted to play by their own rules. So they challenged the law, in the shape of HMRC. They fought it and lobbied it and didn’t give up. In 2008, after two long years of legal battles and in a historic victory, the Gin Act was rendered null and void, and the future of gin production in the UK was forever changed. In 2009 Sam and Fairfax opened the first distillery in London for almost two centuries. It was called Sipsmith.

This momentous change in the law has opened up the gin market to a vast array of small and large, artisan gin distillers. Once again the gin arena is changing as the market is flooded with a dizzying array of varied, hand-cut gins. The quality and range of gins produced in the UK is growing exponentially, and this trend is being replicated across the world. As gin lovers continue to explore their favourite spirit and discover myriad choices of quality, handmade gins, distilled with passion and great artistry, it’s worth remembering that this wasn’t even possible just over a decade ago.

And where will it stop? Gin consumption grew more than any other alcoholic drink in 2018 according to the IWSR, the leading supplier of data and market intelligence on the alcoholic drinks market. In Britain, gin sales grew by 32 per cent in 2018 compared to the previous year. The ISWR put much of this growth down to pink gin. Even Gordon’s has bowed to the popularity of the pink tipple and introduced a pink gin. Until then you had to make your own by adding angustora bitters!

The growth of the gin market continues unabated. The richest man in the world has dipped his toe in the water, via his online retailer, Amazon, announcing the launch of its own gin. Sales of gin soared by a staggering 750 per cent in 2019, and there is a dizzying array of choices for the innocent drinker who wanders into a pub in search of a simple gin and tonic – there are seventy-eight brands from which to choose, and it is still one of the most popular drinks on the market.

By the end of 2019, gin was the UK’s second largest spirits category, according to Jonny Peacock, customer development, strategy and planning director for Pernod Ricard UK. There are now over 300 gin distilleries in the UK, and while we are not quite consuming 10 litres per person annually as we did in the 1700s, the market is booming. However, this doesn’t necessarily bode well, and the situation presents a number of issues.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

With the proliferation of new gins being produced, the quality of the commercial offering has widened immensely. It has been likened to the French wine industry, where some of the best wine in the world is made, and also some of the worst. It could be said that the same is true for gin, that it’s easier now to get poor gin, but it’s also easier to get very good gin. Undoubtedly some of the care and passion being poured into creating handmade gins delivers some fabulous, complex new drinks. However, with relatively easy access to entry level distilling, a huge amount of less good gin is being created, some may say in order to cash in on the gin bandwagon. As the gin craze continues it can be observed that some drinkers are more inclined to want to consume the next ‘new’ thing in gin, rather than concern themselves too much with the taste.

This leads on to the dizzying array of gins now available, which push the boundaries of what has traditionally been classed as gin. Flavoured gins and coloured gins are the fastest growing categories. Twenty years ago, a pink gin was flavoured and coloured with bitters – now ‘pink gins’ are ubiquitous, popping up on every advertising hoarding board and plastered all over Instagram. Even one of the grand-daddies of gin, Gordon’s, found itself turning out a pink gin in 2019, alongside a vaguely rosy-looking Hendricks ‘Summer Edition’. It was as though these bastions of ‘traditional’ gin were finally pushed by the shouty youngsters into submission. Whether it is chocolate-flavoured gin or colour-changing gin made with the tears of mythical beasts, the boundaries of what defines gin have been stretched more in the past ten years than the previous three centuries.

Pubs and bars now proffer groaning shelves, overloaded with dozens of different gins in an attempt to keep up with consumer demand for the next new gin. Drinkers in hostelries up and down the land are now faced with gin menus as well as the more traditional wine list. In The Feathers Hotel in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, the gin menu is a book. It has to be, as the Gin Bar in the hotel offers a variety of over 400 gins from around the world. It was the first bar into the Guinness Book of World Records™ for offering the greatest selection of gins on the planet.

So where does that leave the humble gin drinker? Many are thrilled at the kaleidoscopic choice of gins, finding that the sweeter, flavoured gins allow them entry into the hugely hip gin-drinking club, once denied them on the basis that they didn’t like the taste of, for example, a traditional London Dry Gin. However, for the purists, the explosion of flavoured, coloured and even glittery gins is merely a lot of noise and distraction from the considered art of creating a complex gin, with subtle flavours, using traditional methods and, most importantly, being juniper led.

CHAPTER 2

INGREDIENTS, TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT FOR MAKING GIN