What You Need to Know About Gin

RE: What You Need to Know About Gin

gordana josovic — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 03:40:51 GMT

Excellent work Fred!!!

RE: What You Need to Know About Gin

Fred Swan — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 21:16:26 GMT

Sipsmith gin is single, continuous distillation.

RE: What You Need to Know About Gin

Mark Shipway — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 21:13:09 GMT

Thanks Fred. Thought that is what you did mean. Are there any well known brands of London Dry that do not use the concentrate / blending down with neutral spirit that you know of? Bombay Sapphire uses a Carterhead still I know.

RE: What You Need to Know About Gin

Fred Swan — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 20:54:13 GMT

Hi Mark,

It is a neutral spirit that I'm talking about when I referred to blending. The producer takes a smallish portion of the neutral spirit for a given batch size and distills it with ALL of the botanicals for that batch size. Then, outside of the still, the combine that intense "gin" with the rest of the neutral spirit. That's fair game for London Dry as the flavors are all coming from distillation, nothing but botanicals and neutral grain spirit is used and there's no addition of flavoring post-distillation.

RE: What You Need to Know About Gin

Mark Shipway — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 20:38:59 GMT

Hi Fred. Quick note of clarification required please: methods of production on London Gin. Not sure what is meant in your paragraph on that where you mention "or blending with separately distilled botanical concentrate". I was under the impression that blending is not permitted for London Dry Gin (hence why brands like Hendricks and Tanqueray Ten can only be labelled as Distilled Gin and not London Dry). I thought the only permitted blending as per the regulations is with neutral spirit (in effect dilution) in what is sometimes referred to as the "two-shot" or multi-shot method of production as you describe in the general methods of production section. Maybe I am misinterpreting that text? Thanks!

RE: What You Need to Know About Gin

Fred Swan — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 22:57:59 GMT

Hi Daniel, there aren't any governmental regulations that define either "batch" or "craft" with respect to spirits. There are various industry organizations, such as American Distilling Institute and the Scottish Craft Distillers Association, which have opinions and some of them offer special logos to producers who comply with the organizations' guidelines. Sometimes the guidelines include volume limits. And they typically require the spirits be made "on-site" as opposed to being produced at some contract distiller.

There have been some legal battles, class-action suits, etc. against distillers using terms like "handmade" and "craft" with the claim that such terms were misleading. All the cases I've seen were dismissed though, typically because the court didn't find the terms to have firm, broadly understood definitions.

RE: What You Need to Know About Gin

Daniel Pasalic — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 14:46:27 GMT

Any specific rules for Gin in order to state "Batch" or "Craft" on the label?

RE: What You Need to Know About Gin

Michael Winterbottom — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 03:04:48 GMT

Awesome Thank you!

RE: What You Need to Know About Gin

Ronald Plunkett — Fri, 13 Jan 2017 21:33:46 GMT

Awesome Read Sir!!!!

RE: What You Need to Know About Gin

Vlada Stojanov — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 21:19:42 GMT

Hi Fred,

Great read!

On the topic of martinis, maybe add that Gin should be stirred, as you can bruise it otherwise and lose some of the aromatic compounds if you shake it.