Gin Still

Gin makers follow a few basic steps to produce gin:

• Combine the base ingredients: They mix dried grains like flaked maize and wheat malt with water and yeast, heating and stirring the mixture (often called “gin mash”) to prepare it for fermentation.

• Ferment the base: The mixture is stored for one to two weeks to ferment, during which compounds break down to produce ethanol, a simple alcohol.

• Strain the mixture: After fermentation, the liquid (ethanol) is strained from the solids, which are discarded.

• Distill: The liquid is purified through distillation, where it is heated, vaporized, and recondensed. This process, which can be repeated multiple times for purity, results in a more alcoholic liquid. Botanicals may be added at various stages, either steeped in ethanol before or between distillations or added during distillation using a special still.

Gin makers follow a few basic steps to produce gin:

5. Collect and sort the product. The liquid that gin makers have after distillation isn’t all the same because as ethanol distills, the resulting liquid changes. The first 35 percent of a distillation results in an ethanol product that contains methanol or acetone and can be highly volatile or toxic—containers of this liquid are called the “foreshots” and the “heads,” and distillers usually throw them out. The following 30 percent contains the “hearts,” which are the best, most usable product. The final 35 percent are the “tails,” which are impure but can be kept and redistilled for a little more product.

6. Dilute. Once the distillers have their distilled product, they’ll dilute the gin to the desired alcohol content by testing the alcohol by volume (ABV) and gradually adding water. At this step, distillers making gin liqueur may add additional flavorings or sugar to create products like sloe gin, pink gin, or rhubarb gin.

7. Bottle. The final step is the bottling process, in which gin makers add the final product to labeled bottles.