Richard Crooks's Website
Gin Recipes
Gin is a most quintissentially English drink (although it's a derivative of a Dutch drink called jenever), and the English love to make gin, and drink gin, and put gin in everything from tonic water to potato chips. Gin is as English as it gets quite honestly.
I've had a dabble with making gin, that is bathtub gin, which is easier to make with less risk of killing yourself, and you can read about my exciting ginsperiments here. Perhaps it'll give you some ideas that you'd like to try yourself
Base: Vodka
Botanicals: Juniper, Coriander, Angelica, Licorice, Lemon Peel, Orris Root, Pink Peppercorn, Black Peppercorn
Description: This gin has pepper in it. The spicy black pepper and the sweet pink pepper. These are tapered with lemon peel, and the base gin botanicals, including orris and licorice as well as angelica, coriander and juniper.
This gin tastes like fairly regular gin, the pepper notes are there, but they nicely complement, rather than overpower the juniper flavours. It tastes classy, and sophisticated.
Base: Vodka
Botanicals: Juniper, Coriander, Angelica, Licorice, Lemon Peel, Cassia Bark, Florina Pepper, Sichuan Pepper, Lemongrass, Lime Leaf
Description: This gin is normal gin botanicals like juniper, coriander and angelica, with the citrus of lemon, along with the South East Asian inspired life leaf, Sichuan pepper and lemongrass, with some spiciness imparted by the Florina pepper. I return to a vodka base for this gin.
This gin is delicious, it's lovely and light, but also surprisingly fragrant, it is most definitely gin-tastic in its deliciousness, in that it tastes of gin, rather than oddness, which is a bonus when one is making gin.
Base: Tsipouro
Botanicals: Juniper, Coriander, Angelica Root, Lemon Peel, Black Pepper, Lemon Pepper, Garlic, Florina Pepper, Oregano, Krokos Kozanis Saffron, Mastic
Description: This gin was inspired by the Mediterranean flavours of the oregano garlic and lemon along with the florina pepper and black pepper as well as the mastic for a vanilla sweetness the base of tsipouro also provides a unique flavour to the gin. Also because this week I became aware of a knob who was obsessed with oregano I decided to make this gin in his honour.
Sadly, I'm not sure about this one, it tastes a little bit, odd, and I'm trying to work out which of the flavours is the strange one. My feeling is the tsipouro makes it taste funny, by being a strange base but without the burn of tsipouro.
Base: Vodka
Botanicals: Juniper, Coriander Seed, Angelica Root, Grains of Paradise, Cubeb, Orange Peel, Lemon Peel, Licorice
Description: This is my original gin recipe, only this time, I increased the aging time, because I was going on holiday, and I thought it would be fun! This gin is much deeper and more flavoursome than the first gin, but balanced differently. I think the increased maceration time means that other flavours are able to infuse from the botanicals I used.
Base: Vodka
Botanicals: Juniper, Coriander Seed, Angelica Root, Thyme, Sumac, Roasted Wheat, Citric Acid, Sesame Seeds
Description: I'm making this a gin inspired slightly by the circumstances of Life of Brian, when Brian's misguided followers follow him to the mountains and complain that there's no food, even though there's a juniper bush (which they think Bryan has created). This combines the classic juniper, coriander and angelica with Palestinian za'atar, a herb mix that features strongly in Palestinian culture.
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