Make your own Gin & Tonic

Gin. Once originated in the Netherlands as jenever, now extremely popular. The combination with tonic is indispensable on terraces and in clubs. Many businesses even have a special 'Gin & Tonic menu'. In this article I will tell you how I made my own gin with a sous vide infusion .

What is gin?

Gin is an alcoholic beverage with a juniper base. Nothing more, nothing less. There are a number of qualifications for gin. The well-known brands are London Dry Gin , Distilled Gin and Compound Gin . Below are the differences:

London Dry Gin
Does a London Dry Gin have to come from London? No. London Dry is a qualification that stands for a single distillation, in which all ingredients are distilled together. The only ingredient that may be added after distillation is water.

Examples: Bombay Sapphire, Beefeater, Tanqueray

Distilled Gin
This process is largely the same as London Dry Gin, except that with Distilled Gin, flavours are often added (infused) afterwards or additional ingredients are distilled along with it.

Examples: Hendricks, Gin Mare

Compound Gin
We're going to make this ourselves! With Compound Gin, the ingredients are only added after distillation. The base of this gin is a neutral alcoholic beverage; vodka . The advantage is that you can make this gin yourself without having to distill.

The ingredients

As I mentioned before, a gin always has a juniper base. This is also ingredient number one. Examples of ingredients that are often found in gins are:

• Coriander seed
• Pepper
• Ginger
• Cardamom
• Lemon
• Lime
• Lemongrass
• Thyme
• Rosemary
• Angelica
• Laurel
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg

Of course, you can also choose to add another ingredient. The sous vide technique comes in handy here, because it makes infusing flavors very easy. I chose an infusion of lavender . Remember, this is my gin. Feel free to choose another ingredient and make the gin that suits you best!

The list of ingredients for my homemade gin:

• 1 liter vodka
• 30 g juniper berries
• 1 tbsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp white peppercorns
• 2.5 cm ginger
• 1 stalk lemongrass
• 5 cardamom pods
• 2 sprigs of thyme
• 1/3 lemon peel
• 10 sprigs of lavender

Please note: the quality of the vodka affects the end result. So don't buy the cheapest (house brand) vodka in the store. I chose Smirnoff vodka. I can already reveal that the end result was very good.

The technique: Making your own gin

Making your own gin is very easy. It's mostly just waiting…

1. 1. Take a pan or sous vide container and fill it with warm water. Then set your sous vide device to 60 °C and let the water come to temperature.
   2. You take all the ingredients and put them in a cut bag from the vacuum bag on a roll!
   3. Empty the bottle of vodka into the bag.
   4. Close the sous vide bag with the vacuum sealer . Don't have a vacuum sealer? Below are 2 methods you can use.

The table edge method
I recommend this method if you want to vacuum seal a bag of liquid without using a vacuum sealer. Close the filled sous vide bag about halfway. Then hold the bag against the edge of a table (or countertop) with the liquid facing down. The top of the seal should be on the table. Then use the edge of the table to push the liquid down and press the air out of the top of the bag before closing it.

The water displacement method
This method can be used with almost all products. Close the filled sous vide bag about halfway. Place the bag in a container with water (for example your sous vide container ) and keep only the closure above water. Everything below the closure should be covered with water. The pressure of the water pushes the air out of the bag. When all the air is out, close the bag.

1. Lower the sous vide bag with the ingredients into the water and set the timer for 1 hour.
2. Once the hour is up, remove the sous vide bag from the water and cool the contents in a bowl of ice water for about 30 minutes. You can also put it in the freezer for 1 hour, or in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
3. Pour the liquid from the bag through a fine sieve into a bottle or jar. You can throw away all the ingredients, we don't need them anymore.

Tip: your homemade gin – like all spirit infusions – will keep indefinitely at room temperature. However, you will notice that after a while some sediment will collect at the bottom of your jar or bottle. You can filter this out with a coffee filter if necessary.

Serving the best Gin & Tonic

Gin Tonics come in all shapes and sizes. There are countless different gins and dozens of different tonics. You can also choose to bring out a flavor of your choice by adding botanicals to your Gin Tonic. A classic Gin & Tonic is often poured into a large balloon glass, because the aromas can linger in this well. However, feel free to choose a different glass.

The Tonic
First of all: the tonic. They come in many different shapes and sizes. Indian tonic, Elderflower tonic, Mediterranean tonic, Light tonic, and so on. If you like a bitter taste, go for the 'normal' Indian tonic. Not so keen on sweet drinks? Then choose the light variant.

Tip: The advantage of the light tonics is that they contain less sugar. This makes the tonic less present and you taste the gin better. I prefer the normal Fever Tree tonic, but I also often drink Royal Club Tonic (the light version) at home. They sell them in 1 liter bottles in the supermarket, and are a lot less expensive than the Fever Tree bottles. However, if you want to impress your friends, well... What you pay is what you get.

The botanicals
Here you can be creative. You choose which flavour you want to bring out. You can add anything in principle. Decide for yourself! Keep in mind that the more botanicals you add, the faster they will overpower the flavour of the gin. For this reason, some cocktail bars prefer to serve Gin Tonics without botanicals.

Tip: Do not add more than 2 different botanicals. The botanicals are not meant to overpower the flavors of the gin, but to make certain flavors and aromas stand out a bit more.

I chose to enhance the lavender a bit with my gin by placing a few small sprigs in the glass. I also added some juniper berries. It also looks nice!

To serve
There are a few points you should definitely pay attention to for a perfect Gin & Tonic:

• Ratio . The ideal ratio for making a G&T is of course personal. Some people like to drink their G&T with a ratio of 2 measures of tonic to 1 measure of gin. Others prefer 3-to-1 or even 1-to-1. Do what you like best. I usually go for 3-to-1.

Please note: A bottle of tonic often contains 200ml of tonic. If you pour your entire bottle into a glass to which you add 1 measure of gin (40ml), you will arrive at a ratio of 5-to-1. This is a waste! This will cause all the finesse of your gin to be lost.

• Lots of ice . This is a standard for the perfect Gin Tonic. The more ice you add, the less quickly it will melt. This prevents an abundance of melt water in your drink.
• Pre-chill the glass and remove the meltwater . Fill your glass with a good amount of ice and stir or swirl it around the inside to chill the glass. Then pour the meltwater away, just before adding other ingredients.
• Add your tonic slowly . This will keep your perfect Gin & Tonic sparkling for longer! You can prevent the tonic from dying right away by tilting your glass slightly while pouring the tonic.
• No straw! And here's why:
  • When you drink through a straw, you skip the tip of your tongue. This means you miss out on many taste stimuli.
  • The scents of the botanicals are not picked up by your nose when you drink through a straw. If you serve without a straw, you automatically bring your nose closer to the glass.
  • A straw invites you to stir. We don't want that, because stirring makes the tonic fizz more. This removes the carbon dioxide from your tonic. Only stir the Gin & Tonic once after adding the gin to mix it well, then no more.

One last tip: Are you a real Gin & Tonic lover? Then download the ' Ginto app ' in the AppStore. In this app you can find a lot of information about almost all gins that exist. Often the ingredients are included, based on that you could choose a botanical. You can also keep track of which gins you have tasted and add notes to them. Very handy!

That was it. I hope this article has inspired you enough to get started. Cheers!