Flavoured Neutral Spirits (non-sweet)
These include ...
Flavoured Vodka
Volodia writes ..
Samogon means self(samo) distilled(gon)i.e. moonshine, similarly
samovar means a self-brewing tea urn. Vodka (in polish wodka, in
ukrainian horilka)is the generic name for the distilled spirit. Its
the diminutive contraction of its archaic name "zhizhenia voda" (aqua
vita). Specialty vodkas are flavored by later infusing the pure
distillate with various herbs, berries, fruits. Villagers did not
follow written recipes they just "added to taste". Russian, Ukrainian
& Polish cookbooks (some in English) usually have recipes at the back
under beverages. Polish, Ukrainian & Russian vodkas share a similar
heritage (ignore national pride).
See ..
In Siberia they make samogon using flour and kalina berries (guelder
rose, high-bush cranberries). A recipe for the wash could be 1.5kg
flour, 0.5kg berries to 5l boiling water to gelatinise the starch in
the flour. The berries provide the yeast with nutrients & provide
flavor to the vodka. Suitable alternatives would be rose-hips or
cranberries.
Ukrainians add 2 hot chilli-peppers to a litre of vodka for their
"Horilka z pertsem" ( Chilli-pepper vodka).
Russians add pepper corns. It was once mistakenly believed that they
rectified rough samogon.
My Lemon Vodka - Instead of infusion, I made a sugar wash(6kg/25l
water) & added juice & peel of 25 lemons. ( 1 lemon = 3g citric acid)
Distilled it once in a 2 stage equivalent reflux still & got a clear,
delicate flavored vodka. Will try it with orages next.
In the Caucus Mountains they make a vodka from elderberry mash. Try
it with 2-4kg of berries, & 1kg sugar/5litres of water.
300g of whole dried rosehips or 150g dried shells added to 5 litres
of a sugar wash adds nutrients but not an overpowering flavor.
To Chill Vodka in the East European Manner:
You can put it in the coldest part of the refrigerator or encase it in
its own mantle of ice -
First boil some water, so that the resulting ice is transparent. Allow
the water to cool and then pour about 25mm (1-inch) of water into a
tall thin container - an empty 1-litre (1 quart) milk container is
excellent - and freeze until firm. Place the vodka bottle firmly in
the centre of the container, surround with water and freeze until
solid. When you are ready to serve it. simply dip the container in hot
water for a few seconds and the bottle will slip out of its
ice-mantle easily.
Volodia has also scanned in some pages of recipes for making flavored
vodkas from "Ukrainian Cuisine", N I Georgievsky, et al, Technika
Publishers, Kiev 1975 (out of print). Pp. 179 - 187. Each page is about 150 kb.
He also reports recipes from a Russian language site:
http://www.halyava.ru/asmir/nsam.html
Rectification recipes for 3l of samogon vodka:
- "Cognac" (1). 1tbsp sugar, 1tbsp tea, 3 bay leaves, 5 black pepper corns,
3-5 cloves, 3mm piece vanilla bean, some lemon or orange peel.
- "Cognac" (2). 3 bay leaves, 6 all-spice seeds, 6 black pepper corns, 3tbsp
sugar, 1/4 tsp vanilla essence, 1tbsp cinnamon, 2tbsp tea, 6 cloves.
- "Cognac" (3). 3 tsp sugar, 3tsp instant coffee, 3 bay leaves, 5 cloves, 8
black pepper corns.
- Starka (for 500ml vodka). 5 drops of ammonium smelling salts.
- Infusions. Wormwood; Currant; Plum; Morello cherries.
- Liquers recipes are given for Strawberry, Raspberry, Milk, Grape, Coffee,
Rose petal, Cucumber (fresh and fermented).
- Colored vodka recipes using violets, mint, bilberry, sunflower seeds,
saffron.
Volodia also writes ..
Came across an 18th century vodka recipe from a Russian site. Erofei
was Graf (count) Alexei Orlov's barber (tsirul'nik). He had a good
knowledge of herbal medicine and came up with a cure for his noble
client's ailment after mainstream doctors could not.
Recipe for Vodka Erofeich:
- 1litre vodka
- 35g fresh mint
- 35g fresh anise
- 35g crushed Seville orange pips (bitter orange seeds)
- Macerate for 2 weeks, then decant.
Why orange pips? They contain gluey pectin which apparently is good
for stomach ailments. The vodka helps too !
A good Russian home distilling (samogon) site:
http://www.stopka.ru/drink/samogon/samogon00.shtml.
A reflux column (deflemator) is mentioned but gives not much detail.
Pot stills are king in Russia apparently.
from Cheryl ...
Peppered Vodka. Over here, we make our peppered vodka the straight
forward way - use peppers as hot or as cool,(I
grow mine, jalapeno)as you can stand it, slice
in half, and add a few to each bottle. After it
turns a wee bit green (jalapeno) it's ready.
If for some reason it's too hot, add a bit of sugar &
lemon. Excellent for cesare's. I usually make mine
BEFORE diluting, as it is hot and the extra h2o
cools nicely.
Flavored vodkas are large here too. There is a drink I call lemon drop.
remove the rind from 3 large lemons, throw it in a gallon of vodka, wait
1 week, strain. Then decant into smaller bottles and freeze. Of course
it won't actually freeze, but it gets thicker than normal. Then cut up
some lemon wedges, sprinkle with sugar, and have a shot of the vodka,
then the lemon. tastes like lemon drop candy, only with a huge punch.
Another good one is red currant. 1 1/2 cups r.currants, from the bulk
store, to 1 gallon of vodka, store for a month or so, til nice and red
colored, strain, serve with fresh orange juice.
Wal also offers ...a spice and honey flavored vodka called 'Krupnik'
that I got from a Polish cookbook:
Krupnik Litewski
- 300g honey (1 cup)
- 750ml vodka (40%abv)
- 1/4 piece vanilla bean
- 1/4 nutmeg
- 10g cinnamon
- 2 cloves
- 1 strip of lemon peel
Macerate and strain after 10 days
Gin
For instructions on how to distill your own gin essence, see John Stone & Mike Nixons
Making Gin & Vodka.
I use a small essence still to make gin essence in. It is a 1L glass coffee pot, with a large
cork in the top, through which a condensor sits. Total cost < NZ$20.

Mikrobios describes his technique ...
Intinct
- 60 g dried juniper berries,
- 1 g cardamom seeds,
- 1 g coriander seeds,
- 0.5 g dried cinnamon, and
- 0.5g dried rosemary
in 200mLs high proof distillate (95%) for 3 weeks in a sealed jar.
The mixture becomes a murky brown. Don't worry if it smells unpleasant and medicinal.
Then add 100 mLs filtered water, remove the cinnamon and either pot-still without reflux, or, as I do,
use a simple 'internal alembic' made from kitchen utensils:

This method is very well known, and may be the best for essence distillations where one is starting with good spirit
and where methanol/fusels are not a problem. I place two vessels in the pan: the collecting vessel is thus
insulated against the heat of the boiling tincture and at the same time is kept below its own boiling point
by the drops of distillate. When the cooling water is hand-warm (trial and error) I turn the gas off.
About 100mLs of clear distillate is obtained; I bring this to 150 mL with cold filtered water. It immediately becomes
opalescent. About 4 mLs of this will flavour a litre of 40% spirit to make a clear and flavourful gin. Calibrating a batch is
a delightful way to spend an evening.
As a alternative method, UPS writes ...
You can order juniper berries at www.penzeys.com It's an American company
out of Wisconsin. I have ordered from them. They have good products, prices
and fast service.
I use juniper berries by simmering them in 50% vodka for
ten minutes (with the lid on), then letting it cool overnight on it's own.
The next day I filter this mess through a couple of coffee filters to get a
homemade (and better quality) gin essence. I use about 35 grams of juniper
berries (crushed) and 350ml of vodka - 5ml (one teaspoon) will turn a bottle
of vodka into a light flavored gin. 10ml make a more traditional, strong
flavored gin. You can add other spices like cardamom, coriander, and lemon
peel (about one gram of each) for a more complex flavor in your gin. Using
10ml makes a straw yellow colored drink.
Regarding other sources of Juniper berriers, Dick advises ..
I hope that was a mistake when you said you haven't got a yew
bush for juniper berries. If what you are calling yew is the taxus baccata then
the seeds in the berries (bright red with an obvious seed visible at the end -
like a cocktail olive !!) are VERY VERY poisonous and should not be eaten
under any circumstances (unless you're a bird, in which case the seeds go
right through & out the other end !!)
The juniper you want is juniperus communis, the berries are green at
first but if left on the bush for a year turn blue/black & have that wonderful
juniper smell when crushed. Juniper is fairly slow growing so you're probably
better off going to a health food shop, herbalist or good cook shop for
supplies - the berries are great for use in cooking & pickling. However if
you're ever in Scotland talk to me 'cos I know where they grow wild !!
Another source might be aromatherapy juniper oil, it'll be very
concentrated but it's supposed to be a pure extract. Don't know if anyone
else in the group has had experience of using juniper in this form.
Matt adds ...
In Bob Emmons' _The Book of Gin & Vodkas_ he describes gin manufacture to some extent,
even delineating the "cold compunding" method into three sub categories. Cold compounding is using
neutral spirit and basically soaking the botanicals in it, which is what I see on the amateur sites we frequent.
The other methods are of course distillation of botanicals into oils and then their addition to neutral
spirit and traditional pot distilling of spirit through botanicals via the gin head.
He says the basic compounding includes crushing the botanicals used, a week of steeping in neutral
spirit, and a week of resting. Followed by filtering, dilution, and bottling. It is clear that the filtering is for
particulate matter since neutral spirit is used up front.
re: botanical amounts, he gives a complete listing of
the common to the more obscure (rosemary, savory, etc.) botanicals used.
Here's his section on a basic gin botanical ratio:
Here's a simple recipe utilized for making a basic gin. To 2,000 liters of 100 proof alcohol,
add 45.4 kg of juniper berries, 22.7 kg of coriander seeds, 4.5 kg of cinnamon bark,
4.5 kg of angelica root, 0.45 kg of lemon peel, and 0.45 kg of cardamom.
The end result will be immediately recognizable as gin.
Well that's good news ;-) He doesn't mention the method used for the above "recipe"
but it would appear to be a cold compounding method.
notes on botanicals: North American cinnamon of commerce is actually the bark of
the cassia tree. True cinnamon is not as easily obtained but it would seem his basic gin is
using the cassia bark. Cardamom in this case would be cardamom seeds themselves and
not the whole pods. Remember to remove as much pith (the white part) from the lemon peel; it is bitter.
Wal writes ...
For the history of gin (1650) see:
http://cocktails.about.com/library/weekly/aa080899.htm
The Household Cyclopedia (1881) gives a Dutch and an English recipe:
"To Prepare Gin as in Holland" using a proof spirit distilled from a
rye, barley malt mash. Scaled down and converted to metric it
consists of macerating 17.5g of juniper berries and 0.75ml (15drops)
of juniper oil in 1 litre of proof spirit and redistilling.
"English Genever" is made by macerating 35g of juniper berries in 1
litre of proof spirit with added water and redistilling. See:
http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/mspong/distillation.html
Some distillers have the alcohol vapor pass through the botanicals
(in a gin head), others macerate together and redistill while others
distill various botanicals separately, and then blend, because
different oils have different boiling points. I suspect some modern
gins add essential oils to a neutral spirit instead of redistilling
with botanicals.
Dutch gin (genever) is based on a heavier spirit made from a mash of
wheat, rye and malted barley distilled in pot stills.It is often
stated wrongly that genever uses only juniper. Other botanicals are
used. It's the method used which gives genever its distinctive style.
Bols, passes the vapor in a 4th distillation over the juniper berries.
Triple distillation is common, and juniper is normally introduced in
the second distillation, with the other botanicals being added to the
3rd (or sometimes 4th) distillation. Notaris redistills with juniper,
while a 3rd blending component is distilled with other botanicals
separately. The end result of combining a richer spirit and a higher
percentage of juniper is a spirit which is more powerfully textured
than London gin.
Old genevers were straw-colored and pungently sweet. Early English
gin was also a juniper-laden drink flavored with glycerine and sugar
syrup (Old Tom). Plymouth gin claims to be the first distillery to
produce a dry, crystal-clear gin in the late 18th century. Gin was a
perfect medium for bitters (to prevent stomach problems), lime juice
(to prevent scurvy), and Schweppe's Tonic Water cotaining quinine (to
prevent malaria).
There are 2 main ways to make gin: redistilling a neutral spirit
which has had botanicals added to it (Distilled Gin); or adding
essential oils (cold compounding). Distilled Gin (on label) is
superior.
The pot stills used have high necks for more reflux than the usual
whisky stills.
All distilleries have their secret rcipe of botanicals and how they
put them in varies. Some put the botanicals in for only a short time
before redistilling, others steep them for 24 hours before
distilling, others pass vapor through a basket holding the botanicals.
Not all botanical aromas appear at the same time. After a quick
foreshots run, the volatile citrus notes appear, then come juniper
and coriander, then the roots such as orris, angelica and liquorice.
The length of the run is important. The alcohol concentration of the
final product is also important as citric notes are the most
volatile, and should be greater than 40%abv. Some duty-free gins are
50%abv.
All brands use juniper and coriander, but Gordons uses ginger, cassia
oil and nutmeg. Beefeater uses bitter orange peel as well as angelica
root and seed. Plymouth's 7 botanicals include sweet orange peel and
cardamon. Sapphire uses the now rarely seen cubeb berries (India) and
grains of paradise (Ghana).
The Dutch figure prominently in the history of distilling. With their
business acumen, they were quick to make a guilder when the
opportunity arose.
The first recorded distillation of gin (eau de vie de genievre)is in
1572 by Franciscus Sylvius a physic of Leiden, and it was meant as a
health tonic based on juniper berries. Lucas Bols, the father of
commercial gin production, built his first distillery in 1575 near
Amsterdam. The first recorded commercial liqueur was Lucas Bol's
Kummel. It was meant as an aid for digestion i.e. as a digestive.
It's based on caraway seeds which are believed to aid digestion and
prevent flatulence.
The use of caraway flavored spirits are still
common from Holland to Latvia. Caraway has a yield of essential oils
from about 3-7%, therefore you would need to macerate about 100 grams
of crushed seeds in 40%abv and then to redistill to get a caraway
flavored spirit. This would have about a teaspoon (5ml or 100 drops)
of caraway essential oil. Using a commercial essential oil is another
alternative. Here is a basic recipe for those with a flatulence
problem:
Kummel
- 750ml (3 metric cups) of caraway flavored alcohol 40%vol (5ml
essential oil/litre i.e. redistill 100g crushed seeds in 1L 40%abv)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup water
Make a simple syrup and add to the alcohol
You could also make a caraway flavored vodka by maceration:
- 1 litre vodka 40%abv
- 60g (2oz) lightly crushed caraway seeds (4tbsp)
- 60g (2oz) sugar (1/2 cup), or to taste.
Macerate for 10 days and strain.
Arak or Raki
See also the instructions in Fruit based mashes.
For a Greek "raki" alembic still see:
http://www.paleochora-online.de/raki_eng.htm
Roger is still working on improving the following method for making Arak ..
Arak is the national alcoholic drink of Lebanon. It is a distillate from grape alcohol
and aniseed similar to Ouzo, but without sugar and gum mastic added...
Crush grapes, allow to ferment completely, distill alcohol. Clean pot
still and redistill alcohol (which I run through activated charcoal), return
alcohol which is about 150 proof to the still adding one third the volume
of alcohol, water plus 2 pounds of aniseed per gallon of alcohol.
The aniseed is kept whole and is soaked in hot alcohol in the
still the day prior to distillation. Distill a third time.
What I get is a distillate that is 170 proof which is diluted with distilled
water to 100 proof (if the proof is less than 100, Arak turns cloudy).
It is aged in pottery crocks for a month.
Another method is to blend 190 proof alcohol with anis oil (produced in Spain).
Wal writes ...
Anise flavored spirits:
Arak (Lebanon),Raki(Turkey,Crete), Tsikoudia (Crete), Tsipouro, Ouzo
(Greece), Ojen (Spain), Pastis (France) -
Arak, Raki, Ojen is distilled from grape pomace in alembic stills
capable of holding 40-130kg. to which aniseed is added. I gather the
proportion is approx. 500g/25l of wash.
Ouzo has other herbs and
spices added such as coriander, cardamon angelica root, cloves,
fennel, nutmeg, mastic, tillium flowers. It is usually distilled once
(40% a.b.v.) or sometimes twice (60% a.b.v.). I suspect the aniseed
was originally added to mask the roughness, as no thermometer was
used to control the distillation.
In Turkey they now use shredded
raisins (70% sugar), instead of grape pomace. To reconstitute a grape
wash use 2kg unsulphured raisins/5l water. First they produce a
raisin distillate to which aniseed is added (approx.100g/l of spirit)
and a second distillation is carried out. Aniseed gives a 3% oil
yield. Sugar and water is added and it is aged for a month. Arak
(from grape pomace) is aged in clay pots for up to year & a 3%
evaporation loss occurs. Anisette and Sambucca are sweet aniseed
based liquers.
Grappa
Wal also writes about Grappa ...
Rum is made from the waste material (molasses) from sugar processing.
Grappa is made from the waste material (pomace) from wine making.
It was the drink of the frugal rural folk as there is still
sufficient alcohol at about 12% present in the pomace. A more
literary name would be "acquavite di vinaccia". Vinaccia is Italian
for pomace. For similar reasons in Greece they make
tsipouro/raki/ouzo out of stemfila which is Greek for pomace.
For the Greek version and using a single distillation, herbs (anise seeds
etc.) are placed in the bottom of the pot to prevent the pomace from
burning. Possibly 500g of aniseed/100kg pomace is used (this produces
about 5l of spirit). For a second distillation product, steeping 100g
of aniseed/litre of spirit and redistilling seems right (about the
equiv. of 50 drops of aniseed oil/litre of spirit). In France grape
residue is called marc and its used to make "eau-de-vie de marc".
Because grape residue contains seeds and stems, elementary
distillation produces a rough product which was avoided by more
discriminating drinkers. The seeds also produce quite a bit of
methanol. Pomace after a first pressing contains much of the flavor
of the particular grape type and thus the final product resembles
brandy or fruit-based liquor. Lighter pressing of the grape must,
better distillation techniques and packaging have made grappa into a
sophisticated liquor.
The vinaccia should be distilled within 48 hours of pressing
otherwise the aromatics disappear, and oxidation and acetification
starts.
On average 100kg of grape pomace yields from 4 - 8 litres of grappa
at 70%abv.
In making white wine, the grape is pressed first to extract the juice
(100kg grapes produce about 55litres of juice), so the pomace from
white grapes must be fermented separately to produce grappa.
Water (or steam) is added to the red grape pomace resulting in a
slurry called flemma which is then distilled. Water is added to white
grape pomace which is first fermented and then distilled.
Traditional method:
Load 100kg of pomace with an equal weight of water (100litres) in a
pot still and distill. Triple distillation is common commercially.
Normally it is diluted to 45%abv.
In Italy grappa is normally an after dinner drink (digestive), or on
a cold day you can have it with your morning coffee!
Last vintage I decided to try a modern method using the red pomace to
provide nutrients and flavor. The yeast was already present.
Modern method:
100kg of pomace with 100litres of water (5kg/5l)
20kg of white sugar ( 1kg/5l)
Referment for a week, press out and distill the clean wash. I used a
reflux tower with a jacket reflux and vapor condenser and which
produces 75%abv which is a great brandy base.
I kept 5 litres of the reconstituded wine under an air lock for 6
months and it made a reasonable light wine.
Absinthe
Wal writes ...
See the Absinthe FAQ
Pernod is Absinthe without the wormwood for legal reasons. If you want
to know what it tasted once, macerate wormwood (artemisia absinthium)
in the bottle or add the essential oil. If you like it, make it -
see: http://my.voyager.net/cruinne/Absinthe/index.html
An article on Absinthe (Scientific American, June 1989, pp112-117)
describes a 1855 recipe from Pontarlier, France. Here is a scaled down
version you can try:
- Macerate 25g wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), 50g anise, and 50g
fennel (all finely divided) in 950ml 85%abv in a 2l flask. (Note: no
heat was specified for extraction).
- Add 450ml distilled water.
- Do a
pot still distillation, collecting 950ml of distillate.
- Separate 400ml
of the distillate, add 10g Roman wormwood (Artemisia pontica), 10g
hyssop, 5g lemon balm, and macerate at 60C.
- Filter and reunite with
the remaining 550ml and dilute to 74%abv to produce 1litre of
Absinthe.
Note: I think you use crushed aniseed and fennel seed, as it
is the seed that has the strongest flavor. You can see that it is the
anise flavor that predominates.
Modern "Pernod" and "Ricard" are basically absinthes without the
wormwood. They are now known as a "pastis" (regional for "melange" or
mixture). As a substitute for wormwood, the modern drink uses
increased amounts of aniseed. Pernod includes aniseed, fennel, hyssop,
lemon balm along with lesser amounts of angelica root, star-anise,
dittany, juniper, nutmeg, veronica. Different absinthe manufacturers
used slightly different ingredients, sometimes using nutmeg and
calamus, both of which have purported psychoactive effects.
Jack recommends the following as very good ...
In one litre of undiluted clear spirit (95%) soak for twenty days (shaking once a day)
the following:
- 28 grams wormwood (artemisia absinthium)
- 28 grams aniseed
- 28 grams fennel
- 28 grams star anise
- 3.5grams coriander
After twenty days of soaking, add water until 40% is reached, then put the
liquid with the herbs in your still and distill out to the 60 to 70% alcohol
range - this must be done right out of the still - the anise oils are dissolved
in the alcohol, if you add water to dilute the distillate, it will turn
cloudy as the oil droplets are thrown out of solution. If your still is
picky about the % of alcohol it will produce, just dilute down to a level
that will distill out to 60-70%. Sometimes tails will show up before this %
is reached - you just made a stronger batch - unless you want to re-distill it
(with the herbs) you'll have to live with that %.
If you wish to have a traditionally colored drink, add to the litre or so of liquor the following:
- 4.5 grams mint
- 4.5 grams wormwood
- 4.5 grams licorice root (cut)
- 1.25 grams citrus peel
Just soak the above until the color you want is reached, then filter and
bottle. If artemisia absinthium cannot be found, artemisia pontica (roman
wormwood), tanacetum vulgare (tansy), salvia officinalis (sage), thuja
occidentalis (white cedar),
or artemisia vulgaris (mugwort) may also be used in it's place. This is a
traditional absinthe recipe from the turn of the century. As for those
worried about the medical effects- recent research has found that the old
disease "absinthism" has symptoms and progression remarkably similar to plain
old alchoholism, and the amount of thujone (active ingredient in wormwood) in
a glass of absinthe is less than one-tenth the amount needed to cause
convulsions in rats (when injected). For those interested in making absinthe
but unable to find the above plants, thujone is found in most of the
Compositae (daisy) family- a little research should find alternates to the
above plants. enjoy!
Volodia writes ...
Make you own absinthe,although the use of wormwood in spirits is
banned because of its thujone content, although some sources say the
quantity is slight and the danger is exaggerated. Similarly Zubrowka
or bison grass flavored vodka is modified for the U.S. market because
of it contains coumarin which is a blood thinner. I would have
thought that because of the high cholesterol diet of the average
American this would be useful! Bison grass or sweet grass (helichloe
odorata) is readily available in the U.S. and makes a great flavored
vodka - watch that you don't bleed to death though!
See:
http://homedistiller.org    
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