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, Orris Root, Licorice, Dulse, Laver
Description: This gin is a seaweed gin! I used two types of seaweed. The Icelandic dulse seaweed, and the Welsh laver seaweed.
It tastes slightly saline, and of the sea, as you'd expect from a seaweed gin, but actually it isn't overpoweringly seaweedy. It has quite a pleasant green tinge to it too.
It's an altogether pleasant gin, that still tastes giney. It doesn't have the harsh sour flavours of some of the citrusey gins, it doesn't have any of the weird tastes of some of the other gins either. Seaweed is a good thing to add to gin it seems!
Base: Vodka
Botanicals: Juniper, Cardamom, Pink Peppercorn, Hibiscus
Description: This is a very floral gin, made with the botanicals found in a Spanish gin botanicals kit, so it's actually cheating. It is however pink, owing to the hibiscus.
It tastes lovely, and the hue is lovely. The hibiscus and pink peppercorns give it some sweetness, which the lack of coriander makes it different to the typical English gins.
Base: Vodka
Botanicals: Juniper, Coriander, Angelica, Black Pepper, Smoked
Description: This gin has basic flavours of juniper, coriander and angelica, with black pepper. I've also smoked this gin, which is why there's black pepper.
The smokiness doesn't come through particularly strongly in this gin, so perhaps different smoking methods are needed. The simplicity of the botanicals though makes this gin very straightforward, and black pepper serves with distinction in gin.
Base: Vodka
Botanicals: Juniper, Coriander, Angelica, Licorice, Lemon Peel, Sichuan Pepper, Sumac
Description: This gin has a really simple idea, basically this has the basic gin botanicals, plus lemon peel, sichuan pepper and sumac, all of which have sharp, citrus notes, so this is intended to be a fresh citrusy gin, even though the only lemon thing in it is the lemon peel.
This was a lovely, light, floral and citrusy gin. It made an excellent gin and tonic.
Base: Vodka
Botanicals: Juniper, Coriander, Angelica, Lime Leaf, Chipotle, Cilantro, Bell Pepper, Oregano, Black Pepper, Garlic
Description: With this gin I am going for a Mexican inspired gin, with the chipotle chilli, oregano and cilantro, along with the other classic spices of Mexican cuisine. I expect this to be a little bit of a zingy gin.
I'm not sure about this one, the chilli is overpowering, so it's a spicy gin, and I can't taste the juniper very much at all. This is barely gin to be honest. There is also the strange flavour of the tsipouro based gin coming through, which is perhaps the oregano.
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