Richard Crooks's Website
Making Gin
Making Gin
Gin is a delicious beverage. As a result of getting a gin making botanicals kit for my birthday I started to make my own gin. Homemade gin is delicious. Gin derives from a Dutch beverage, called Jenever, but is a quintissentially English strong spirit drink. It is traditionally served as a gin and tonic, or as a martini (which my dad used to make the best of in Ontario). Homemade gin is delicious, so here is a directory of all the homemade gins I have made.
Instructions for making gin - read this first, unless you want to blow yourself up, make yourself blind, or be arrested.
2019-08-09
Base: Vodka
Botanicals: Juniper, Coriander, Angelica, Za'atar, Black Pepper, White Pepper, Red Pepper, Green Pepper, Florina Pepper
A herbaceous gin that uses Za'atar and various forms of pepper. Basically I'm emigrating and need to use up my spice rack, so it gets turned into gin.
It's a lovely pleasant gin as a matter of fact. The za'atar is herby and uplifting and the mix of peppers really brings some fruitiness to the gin.
This gin has yet to be tasted.
2019-08-09
Base: Vodka
Botanicals: Juniper, Coriander, Angelica, Cardamom, Nutmeg, Mace
This gin has yet to be tasted.
2019-05-21
Base: Vodka
Botanicals: Juniper, Coriander, Angelica, Licorice, Purple Basil, Thyme
I bought some purple parsley in Armenia, which sadly in dried form isn't as delicious as it is in fresh form. I also bought some thyme at the Khachik Gata Festival, which was a most amusing place, as I also drank some stupendously strong vodka, as well as some home made wines.
So I thought I'd turn these herbs into gin.
This gin has yet to be tasted.
2019-03-31
Base: Vodka
Botanicals: Juniper, Coriander, Angelica, Orris Root, Licorice, Cubeb, Grains of Paradise, Lemon Peel, Orange Peel, Cassia Bark, Citric Acid
I've not made any gin for a while, so this is the basic botanicals from my botanicals kit that I started off with when I started making gin! I also added a bit of citric acid to make this a bit sharper. I'm just trying to have a tidy out basically because I have some big plans coming up later this year.
This gin has yet to be tasted.
2018-12-14
Base: Vodka
Botanicals: Juniper, Coriander, Angelica
So, I hadn't made any gin for a while and I noticed that my juniper was starting to look a bit, well, dodgy. So I made a big batch of gin, using just the 3 basic gin botanicals, and lots of them.
So what does it taste like? Well I figure that the vodka has successfully pickled away any dodginess, along with the filtering, to make this gin excellent.
It's actually quite light, and clean, tastes basically like a normal straightforward gin, instead of a silliness. It's pretty good, definitely drinkable!