Compound Gin
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Gin: It is a staple spirit in any bar.
It’s in dozens of classic cocktails. The standards: Gin and Tonics, Corpse Revivers, Negronis, Martinis- shaken and stirred - though, never shake your martini - it waters down the drink! All gins have a botanical build for their flavor, which is infused into a neutral grain spirit, then distilled. But what if I told you, you could easily make your own, and to your own specifications, likes and needs for whichever cocktail it is you want to make. Want to make a classic martini? Just add the staple botanicals of a London dry gin. Or venture into pink gin to make a delicious Strawberry Clover Club. In this post, I’m going to show you how to do just that using the sous vide method that we used to make our made to order gin for our Gin &Tonic’s at Betony.
You’ll need the following equipment:
Ingredients:
You can do this with a circulator or as I’m doing here, with an instant pot’s sous vide function. Be sure to keep the lid off the instant pot when the alcohol is in the water bath, otherwise it will become a very dangerous situation! Alcohol has a much lower boiling point than water, so proceed with caution. Grab your neutral grain spirit and let’s get started.
I am going to be making 3 different styles of gin: a standard London dry gin- which I love for a classic martini.
A purple gin inspired by Empress gin, that makes just the most instagrammable cocktails.
As well as a very on trend pink gin that I have been seeing everywhere lately.
Each style I will be making will have a totally different flavor profile and application for different styles of cocktails that I will show examples of. Some botanicals, however, are non-negotiable when it comes to gin, like juniper or coriander, as well as angelica root and licorice root to varying degrees.
Since I am not using a still, this gin isn’t going to be crystal clear. This is more of a compound gin or what would be considered a bathtub gin which is made by steeping botanicals into a neutral grain spirit.
My neutral grain spirit of choice is going to be vodka for all 3 gins.
It’s no surprise that each producer keeps their blend of botanicals a secret, so I had to do a bit of research on each style to come up with my own recipe.
For the London dry, I knew that the four most important botanicals that I needed were Juniper, Coriander, Angelica, and Licorice root. The amount of each one needed required a bit of trial and error, and lot of taste testing. The first thing I taste with London dry gin is definitely juniper, so I made sure that would be the dominant flavor.
For the purple gin- I’ve never actually had Empress, as its not sold in my state as far as I know, so I just used their website as a guide for building that recipe. I am looking forward to trying it so that I can see how mine measures up.
Pink gin was kind of a free for all. The old-fashioned way to make pink gin was by adding a dash of angostura to navy strength gin, but todays pink gin it’s all about adding a red fruity character as well as some citrus as floral flavors. For this one I customized it to my tastes and to enhance the kinds of cocktails I like to drink.
That’s what makes this process so fun- you really get to DIY and customize your own ideal gin.
For my London dry botanical blend, I will be using:
Cardamom
Juniper
Black pepper
Lavender
Licorice root
Angelica
Ginger
Coriander
And a couple of bay leaves - in retrospect I’d suggest using 1/2 a bay leaf for 5oz of gin.
For my purple gin I will be using:
Grapefruit
Juniper
Coriander
BFP
Ginger
Cinnamon
Rose
For my pink gin I will be using:
Juniper and Coriander
Grapefruit
Pink peppercorn
Strawberry
Cardamom
Lavender
And rose
Whatever you chose to use for your gin, I would highly recommend only using organic ingredients. When infusing anything in alcohol, you want to make sure that you aren’t ingesting pesticides or any other chemicals that could be leeched out into the alcohol.
Once I’ve gathered all my ingredients, I’m going to add water to my instant pot till it’s about 2/3 full and select the sous vide function. Then I will adjust the temperature to 176 degrees farenheight or 80 degrees Celsius. I also like to keep the lid on while its heating up so that it comes to temperature faster. This is the only time I will keep the lid on.
While that’s heating up, I’m going to build the ingredients into a container.
For the London dry, I will be using:
1.5 tbs of juniper
1 tsp of coriander
1 tsp of black pepper
1/2 tsp of Angelica root
1/2 tsp of licorice root
1/4 tsp of lavender
A one-inch piece of ginger cut into smaller slices
3 cracked cardamom pods
And one medium sized bay leaf and one small bay leaf - like I stated previously- only 1/2 a bay leaf is needed in this blend.
Now add them to the bag, seal it and set it aside- I don’t want to add the alcohol just yet, as it will start extracting the flavors right away. Since this is a rather potent mix of botanicals, I don’t want to over steep and risk any off flavors that could develop while waiting for the instant pot to heat up.
Next, I will begin building the mix for my pink gin. For this gin I will be using:
Two medium strawberries sliced
Two 5-inch strips of grapefruit.
1 tbs of juniper
1 tsp coriander
I tsp of pink peppercorns
3 cracked cardamom pods
1/3 tsp licorice root
1/3 tsp of Angelica root
1/2 tsp lavender
8 rosebuds
Now I will just add all of those ingredients to the bag and seal it and set aside
For the purple gin, I will be using:
1 tbs of juniper
1 tsp coriander
1/3 tsp Angelica root & 1/3 tsp licorice root
1 cinnamon stick- next time I will probably use 1/2 a cinnamon stick.
Around 25 Butterfly Pea flowers- I would scale this back to 6
8 rosebuds
A one-inch piece of ginger cut into 3 slices
And two 5-inch strips of grapefruit peel
Once the instant pot has hit 176 degrees, I’m going to add the alcohol to each bag. Full disclosure: I was planning on using 6 ounces of vodka per bag, but I realized that the bottles I have only fit 5 ounces, so my gin is going to be slightly more extracted.
First, I will measure out 5 ounces and add it to the London dry botanical bag. You want to make sure all the air is removed from the bag, and also want to ensure that all of the botanicals are submerged in the vodka.
I will add the same amount to the pink and purple gins as well.
Then place all 3 bags inside the instant pot, ensuring the vodka and botanicals are submerged.
Then I will start my stopwatch and give these gins 90 seconds to infuse.
At this point you will want to have an ice bath ready to plunge the gin into.
Once the timer reaches a minute and a half, I will pull out the gins and submerge them into the ice bath. Crushed ice works best for this in my experience, but I didn’t have any on hand, so I just went with regular cubes and cold water and it worked out alright. Keep in mind that the faster you cool them down; will slow the infusion and you won’t get as much discoloration or cloudiness.
After the gin had adequately cooled, just strain them using a fine mesh strainer to catch all the botanicals. I definitely want to strain the London dry first, as it has taken on more color. After straining, I like to decant them into their own bottles.
The purple gin is next- it’s hard to perceive on camera, but it has a really rich indigo color that is definitely darker than the empress gin, but still really pretty. It will look amazing when blended with other ingredients for cocktails. I will definitely scale back the butterfly pea flowers next time.
The pink gin turned out to be a lovely blush pink. Now I just need to label them, and they will be ready to use. I’m really pleased with how they all turned out.
Now that our gins are made, let’s make some cocktails!
To use the London dry gin, I’m going to make a classic martini.
For my martinis I like to use a 2 to 1 ratio of gin to vermouth.
To my mixing glass I’m first going to add one ounce of dry vermouth.
Next I’ll add 2 ounces of the London dry style gin.
I’ll give this a good 20 second stir.
Now I will just pour it into my Nick and Nora glass and garnish with a lemon twist. I like to express the oils over the top, and also around the rim of the glass, and even the stem. The bright citrusy aroma helps to balance out the intense herbal notes from the gin.
This gin made quite a tasty martini- the gin itself is very juniper forward and even a bit earthy from the coriander and bay leaf, while the lavender and cardamom added the delicate floral aromas. The licorice rounds out the texture of the drink with just a touch of sweetness. If anything, I think next time I would just use one large bay leaf instead of using the medium and small sized, as well as adding more ginger, which kind of got lost. but all things considered I really enjoyed this blend.
For the purple gin, I’m going to make a simple Gin and Tonic.
First ill fill my Collins glass two thirds full of tonic water
Next, I’m going to add two ounces of the purple gin- which in my case is more of an indigo color.
Now I’ll just top it off with more tonic and squeeze a lime in there, as well as garnishing the glass with another lime wedge. I like a lot of citrus in my gin and tonics.
Taste wise, this gin is completely different than the London dry, while there is definitely a juniper flavor present, the flavor is predominantly cinnamon. You get a lot of the floral notes from the rose, and that herbal, almost minty flavor from the Angelica root. It works really well with tonic. I was hoping for a more drastic color change from adding the lime and the citric acid from the tonic water, but I might have gone overboard on the butterfly pea flower tea. Anyways, I still think it looks stunning and it tastes great, which is the most important thing.
For the Pink gin, I had a cocktail in mind that I created specifically for this blend:
Since this gin has a lot of fresh red fruit notes, I wanted to make a strawberry riff on a clover club.
To make the strawberry syrup, I’m going to dice about a cup of strawberries. This doesn’t have to be perfect, but I want them pretty small to get the best yield of syrup. You want as much surface area as possible for the maceration process.
Now I will transfer the diced strawberries to a bowl and cover them with a quarter cup of sugar, then fold in the sugar till it coats all the strawberry pieces. Once they have been completely covered, ill add the last quarter cup of sugar, and continue to fold it in. Now I’ll just cover them, give them a good shake, and let them sit in the fridge for about an hour or so. If you want faster results, just continue to agitate the strawberries until all of the sugar has been dissolved and you are left with a brilliant red strawberry syrup.
Once all the sugar has been dissolved, strain out the strawberry solids using a fine mesh strainer to catch any strawberry seeds. Definitely save those strawberries for some strawberry short cake or muffins.
After we have strained our beautiful strawberry syrup, it’s time to juice a lemon.
This cocktail will need a half ounce of lemon juice. I’m using a strainer to catch any seeds or pulp from getting into our juice.
Aside from the gin, strawberry and lemon, this cocktail will also use an egg white, and some gum syrup- which is a simple syrup blended with gum arabic. Simple syrup can be used in place of the gum syrup, but I like using gum syrup in egg white cocktails because it helps to maintain the foam for much longer.
To build the drink, I am first going to add a half ounce of gum syrup to my shaker tin:
Next, I will add a half ounce of the strawberry syrup
Followed by a half ounce of lemon juice
Now ill add an ounce and a half of my pink gin
And two small ice cubes.
I like to add the egg white to a separate tin when making egg white cocktails just in case I break the yolk, or get a piece of shell, I won’t have to throw away the whole drink.
Now I will vigorously shake the drink until the two cubes of ice have melted- you will know it’s ready when you don’t hear the ice rattling around in the tins.
Once ready, I will open pour the cocktail into my coupe and garnish with the strawberry.
Of all 3 cocktails, this one is my favorite. It tastes like strawberry ice cream, with just a hint of bitterness and floral notes from the grapefruit peel and lavender. I can taste all the ingredients from the gin but in a more subtle and balanced way than in the other two. I wouldn’t change a thing on this pink gin recipe.
I hope this post shed some light onto how to craft your own gin to meet your favorite flavor profiles and improve your favorite cocktails. Remember you can always experiment and change out these ingredients. This is also a fun and unexpected way to utilize seasonal, local produce to make your own custom cocktails -even if it is just a simple gin and tonic.
