Odin's Easy Gin
Three botanicals, a neutral spirit and one gentle run through a pot still. Odin's Easy Gin is the most popular first gin among home distillers - simple enough to get right first time, and good enough to keep making.
- Makes
- Gin
- Still
- Pot still
- Maceration
- up to 2 weeks
- Rest
- 5 weeks
- Difficulty
- Easy
About this recipe
This isn't a fermentation recipe: it starts with a clean neutral spirit - from a Birdwatchers or TFFV wash, for example - diluted to 43%. Juniper gives the piney backbone every gin needs, coriander adds a citrus-spice lift, and tangerine peel brightens the top.
Ingredients and quantities
Method
- Prepare the botanicals. Crush the juniper and coriander lightly - just enough to crack them.
- Macerate. Add them with the tangerine peel to the neutral spirit at 43% ABV. Either leave them for two weeks at room temperature and filter them out, or macerate for no more than 24 hours and leave them in.
- Distil slowly. Run the maceration slowly in a pot still.
- Discard the foreshots. Throw away the first 10 mL - 20 mL if you distil more than 10 L of maceration at once.
- Collect the gin. Collect about 400 mL per litre of maceration, which should come off at around 70–80% ABV.
- Dilute. Bring it down to 45% ABV with clean water.
- Rest. Leave it in glass for five weeks before drinking; the flavours knit together noticeably.
Distilling
Run slowly so the botanicals' oils come over gradually. Stopping at 400 mL per litre leaves the heavier, stewed-tasting tails behind.
Fermenting a wash is legal in many places; distilling it often is not. Distil only where it is legal to do so, and check your local licensing first.
Troubleshooting
It turned cloudy when diluted.
Botanical oils coming out of solution, usually from running too far into the tails or diluting too low. Collect a little less next time.
Too much juniper.
Reduce it a gram or two per litre, or rest the gin longer.
Variations
- The original keeps to three botanicals; once you know it, small additions - a little angelica, orris or citrus - are easy to try.
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From the forum
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