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Pre-Macerating Botanicals for Toasting
Rookie distiller here. I’ve finally put together enough neutral that meets my standards and am conceptualizing a botanical bill to make some gin, largely drawing the wisdom in this thread:viewtopic.php?t=73049In cooking it’s well understood that toasting spices before adding them to a dish draws out oils and adds a toasty layer that is superior to an untoasted spice. From a Gin perspective I’m unsure how juniper would do but certainly things like coriander, cardamom, cassia would lend itself well to toasting in the culinary world. Has anybody tried toasting their botanicals pre maceration and have any observations to share?If not I’ll do some experimentation and report back as much as I can when I can.
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12 Replies
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i see where you’re coming from, i toast/fry my spices cooking a curry.never thought about doing it for gin and i’ve not heard anyone else trying it either.looks like you will have to be the one to find out my theory would be that all the extraction of the flavour is all carried out by the ethanol.
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When your cooking your not soaking your herbs and spices in high ABV alcohol for 24 hours before hand.My gut feeling is that you are correct, if it was necessary or even produced better results Im sure it would have been common practice years ago, either commercially or in the hobby.I’ll venture to say that if you do toast , the end product wont be better or worse, just different, having said that there is always a chance of over cooking causing bitterness or other problems.
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Sometimes, you have to be the first.I have toasted orange peel, but I don’t think I used it in gin.Looking at a typical gin bill of mine, it didn’t use many spices that might benefit from toasting. The one that would make the greatest difference is coriander, but I’m not aware of anyone doing that. Who wants to go first?A mini gin still that can do a liter or three is very handy for these types of experiments.
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Some spices / herbs benefit from low temperature drying but I don’t think roasting could give a good result, at best some aromas will be destroyed / evaporated
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“We are the music- makers, and we are the dreamer of dreams.” Tsk to the nay sayers. Where would we be without creative minds like yours? Toast away and send us a post card. “Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.Shine on you crazy diamond.”
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Well said! In that case let’s see what we can do! I’ll do some side-by-side experimentation and report back when I can.
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When your cooking your not soaking your herbs and spices in high ABV alcohol for 24 hours before hand.My gut feeling is that you are correct, if it was necessary or even produced better results Im sure it would have been common practice years ago, either commercially or in the hobby.I’ll venture to say that if you do toast , the end product wont be better or worse, just different, having said that there is always a chance of over cooking causing bitterness or other problems.ha ha, but now you have me thinking of reverse logic.should i soak my curry spices in ethanol the day before making a curry?
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Toasting caramelizes, brings sweetness, and develops flavors & aromas. Shoot for somewhere on the cusp of toastiness? Maybe blend with fresh for some depth?Cheers!-j————i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred————
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Just wanted to post an update here on my “toasted botanical gin experiment”. I’ve finally got my botanical bill together, as well as some spaces of time to carve out to do some ‘stillin. Working full time and caring for a 1 year old does not make it easy to get time in for this hobby!Anyway, I did some botanical toasting today just to get an idea of what to expect before I actually go through with maceration and distillation. I basically kept two containers, one for “toasted” botanicals and one for untoasted. I toasted like I would if I were cooking with them in a dry, stainless steel skillet on medium-low heat until I can start to hear some of the oils sizzling if I keep my ear close to the pan.After toasting I let sit to cool for a half hour and smelled and tasted them against their “untoasted” counterparts. Like with cooking I’m looking for an enhanced, “woken up” roasty-toasty aroma and no unpleasant notes in the toasted botanicals relative to untoasted. Some notes and highlights:Coriander, cardamom, cassia, and star anise I’ve toasted many times and know they will really benefit that treatment. Those are pretty tried and true in the culinary context so I’m not sure there’s much to say further.Lemon and orange peel (dried): toasting woke them up significantly. I’m not adding much citrus but really liked the notes coming through – like the citrus would command attention but also wasn’t overly loud and in your face about it.Anjelica: never worked with it and had no idea what to expect but was really pleasantly surprised here. It opened up some “herbal” notes that weren’t present in the untoasted product, a little bit of mint especially. I will likely be incorporating some toasted and untoasted anjelica because I’m unsure whether toasting would denature any fixative compounds present, there doesn’t seem to be much research on it either way. Would love some input on that if anyone has anything to offer.Lavender: Toasting muted a lot of “soap” notes and kept most of the floral. Last but not least (most, in fact): I found toasted Juniper to be really off-putting. All of the freshness that I enjoy in gin was totally gone and it just came across as …sort of dank.So I’m going to sleep on it here, but based on these results I’m inclined to keep the juniper as is, keep some untoasted anjelica, and toast everything else. Going to try to dilute my neutral, weigh everything out, and start macerating this weekend and then distill next week. I’ll post updates as I can.
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Started maceration in line with what I said last post, toasting everything but the juniper.I stuck my nose in after a few hours and it’s definitely smelling like gin, no question. I’m not convinced I’m getting many toasty notes right now, but I guess we will wait and see. Wife heads out of town next week so I think I’ll be able to run this Tuesday night after the little one goes to bed.The progress so far:
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Out of curiosity, how did that toasting work out in the final gin?
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Ah my bad I often lurk without logging in and didn’t notice I hadn’t updated this thread.The product turned out amazing (drinking some right now) but honestly I don’t know there’s a huge difference, at least one that’s hard to isolate from other variables. But since I made my post I’ve picked up a little 3 gallon “experiment” still and I’d like to try a side by side experiment next time…just need to run my bank of feints as I’m out of neutral.I do think though, as I’ve been thinking more about all grain whiskeys that the toast would come through to the final product. Think of how the wide range of toasted/roasted specialty malts come through to the distillate, for example.
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