Making homemade gin!

Just before Christmas I went to a ‘make your own gin workshop’, where I learnt the fine art of flavouring my own gin. The first big ‘wow’ moment was discovering that gin is basically flavoured vodka. Yep, they’re more or less the same thing! Gin however gets its distinctive flavour from natural botanicals, with juniper berries providing that classic ‘gin’ taste.

The workshop was at the lovely Little Seeds restaurant in Staffordshire, where we were invited to try different gins and tonics to see the flavour combinations we liked. We then poured a large measure of vodka into a sterilised jam jar and added our own combination of botanicals, which were left for 48 hours to infuse.

I used this new insight into creating gin to make a few small bottles of different flavours for Christmas gifts. I discovered that my favourite flavour combination was juniper berries, black pepper, coriander seeds and cardamom pods. I did make a batch with star anise, but it was a bit medicinal. I will definitely be trying gin making again, maybe in slighter larger quantities next time! 

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