Are you interested in making your own alcohol? Perhaps you’ve been considering making gin for some time, but just don’t know where to start. Well, we don’t just sell gin here at the Think Gin Club. We are also comprised of a talented team of experts that know the ins-and-outs of the relevant processes, and we’d be happy to help you get started on making your own.

Producing alcohol of any kind is no quick task. However, with the right instructions, the proper instruments and a dash of perseverance, you’ll be crafting your own product in no time. As a neutral base spirit, gin is one of the easier types of alcohol to produce on your own. All you need is a jar, a filter and the right botanical ingredients. Then you’re ready to get started.

What’s the Difference Between Store-Bought & Homemade Gin?

Gin at its most simple is essentially a neutral base spirit which is then flavoured with botanicals. The primary botanical in all cases is juniper of at least 37.5% ABV, but other than that the differences then come down to the creation process. The majority of professional gin producers utilise intricate extraction processes in a concept called distillation.

Since you probably don’t have a fully functioning set of machinery in your home, what you’ll be creating instead is something called compound gin. The resulting products are, for all intents and purposes, nearly indistinguishable from each other, so you don’t need to worry about forking out for a set of expensive equipment. Instead we’ll be using vodka as our base spirit.

A small, yet interesting, factoid is that compound gin has also gone by another name over the years. You may have heard the term ‘bathtub gin’ if you’re interested in the history of botanicals. This is a reference to the large amounts of illegal gin which were produced during the prohibition era. Since the proper equipment was bulky and difficult to acquire, batches were typically produced in whatever the creator could find.

What Botanical Ingredients Will You Require?

For the purposes of producing your very own gin, you’ll first need the base spirit. We recommend selecting a 75cl brand of vodka that you personally enjoy. You will also need:

2 tbsp Juniper berries

1 tsp Coriander seeds

2 Cardamom pods

2 Peppercorns

Half a cinnamon stick

Dried orange and lemon peel (take care to remove the white pith)

It’s Time to Get Started!

Now that you’ve gotten all the ingredients and have the tools primed and ready, you can begin the production of your own personal brand of gin. Take a moment to get excited, and then sterilise the jar with boiling water. From there:

1. Once the jar has been sterilised, add your botanicals without the fresh peels (they’ll go in later). Top the jar up with as much vodka as you like. Make sure it doesn’t overflow though, no matter how excited you might be!

2. Leave the mixture to infuse in a cool, dark place for 24 hours. It’s time to go away and leave the process to do its work. Perhaps you could use this time to enjoy the complimentary gifts and gin included in our monthly Think Gin Club package.

3. The next day, open up the jar and give the infusion a taste. You should already be able to sense the juniper in the mixture. At this point, drop in the orange and lemon peel. Remember to remove the white pith beforehand.

4. Gently shake the jar once or twice and then leave it again for 24 hours in that same dark place. While we’re not timing you, it’s important not to leave it much past this second 24-hour mark so that the mixture doesn’t over-infuse.

5. Once you’re done, give the mixture a taste. It should have a lovely distinct flavour to it now. If you’re done, filter out the botanicals with a sieve of some kind. Then leave the jar to sit again for two days as the flavours begin to develop.

6. Once that’s done, simply filter out any remaining sediment and enjoy. It’s natural for your new compound gin to take on a yellow coloured hue as we’re not using a typical distillation process. If you want it to be clearer though, you can filter it further.

Pour yourself a drink and enjoy what you’ve just created. Congratulations! You’re now a bona-fide producer of your bespoke variation of gin.

Join the Think Gin Club for Complimentary Gifts and the Finest Gin Around

Now that you’ve tasted the fruits of homemade gin, why not try the other end of the scale? We have a selection of beautiful distilled gins crafted in a myriad of bespoke processes. We have flavours galore, and our specialists hand-pick the best for our monthly gin boxes.

For a set fee, you can get the best gins delivered straight to your door on monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly time scales. In the box you’ll find a full-size bottle of an exclusive craft gin, a set of complimentary gin-themed gifts, gin facts, cocktail recipes and more. Join up today!