Olivia Reid with her bottle of custom gin Summer Baby. Photo / Eva de Jong
Olivia Reid with her bottle of custom gin Summer Baby. Photo / Eva de Jong
Over the summer Chronicle reporters have been trying their hand at something new, under the supervision of experts. Today, Olivia Reid tries distilling gin.
After a beautiful drive beside the Whanganui River, I arrived at Papaiti Gin in Upokongaro.
Co-owner, founder and head distiller Adrian Rumney met me at the door - along with a gorgeous aroma of spices and florals emanating from the giant copper stills.
I was led over to a bench with dozens of jars of botanicals stacked on shelves behind.
“Pretty much everything there is a fruit, a spice, a herb or a floral,” Adrian said.
He tells me about the history of gin dating back to the 12th century, and the use of juniper berries for their medicinal qualities being traced back to ancient Rome.
I was most fascinated by the British Army’s adoption of the liquor in the 15th century, and how colonisation by the British Empire is reflected in the botanicals used in gin.
For example, the British Empire’s control of the Indian spice trade can be seen in the common gin ingredient - coriander seed.
Gin and tonic was first popularised as soldiers drank tonic water to ward off malaria but, “soldiers being soldiers”, the British added gin, Adrian said.
The Papaiti Gin building is split in two; half dedicated to the creation of gin and the other half a retail space.
Adrian offered me a taste of their Mountain to Sea gin, slightly watered down to “soften the alcohol note”, as I expressed interest in the added ingredient of kelp.
“The Mountain to Sea is really about those native botanicals,” he said.
Horopito represents the mountains, the manuka is for the river, and the bull kelp represents the sea.
The gin is also distilled with pear, grapefruit, lime and other traditional gin botanicals.
Being a novice gin drinker, Adrian’s flavour profile descriptions were useful in helping to identify what I was tasting.
“The horopito and manuka sort of bounce around the mouth and flush into the chest, but when they settle down you get those subtle sweetnesses coming through in the background, and the umami of the kelp.”
The horopito and manuka were very noticeable in the after-taste with an aromatic sweetness filling my whole mouth.
Staying on theme, I got to taste another river gin - The Waimarie Gin, created in collaboration between Papaiti Gin and the Waimarie paddle steamer.
It mixes a native botanical, kawakawa, with an introduced, invasive botanical, blackberry, to turn the river environment into a flavour profile.
Marshmallow root is also used for its smoky flavour to represent the steamboat.
Adrian took me through the typical botanicals used in gin, including juniper berries which legally have to be in gin. The second most common is coriander seed which has a distinctive citrus flavour, unlike its leafy counterpart, and liquorice root which is a traditional sweetener.
Ingredients, scales, and a notebook were key is designing a custom gin. Photo / Olivia Reid
“It’s [coriander seed] one of those things where the British Empire came into India, they noticed those citrus notes, and started adding it into their gin.”
Now that I had an idea of what gin could be and the botanicals involved, I was given a large list of fruits, leaves, roots and spices so I could make my own gin.
A minimum of 20g of botanicals a litre is needed, going up to about 40g depending on the oil content of the chosen ingredients.
There were a few things I needed to be wary of in choosing my ingredients; for example, if the oil content was too high the gin would appear cloudy, and if the water content was too high it would dilute the alcohol.
I started my recipe with juniper berries then added what I wanted my key flavours to be - strawberries, elderflower, vanilla pods and lime peel.
My goal was to focus on soft, sweet and fruity flavours to balance out the bitterness that turns me away from some gins.
Honeysuckle root, coriander seed, orris root and cardamom pods were added on Adrian’s suggestion to ensure the flavour was rounded out with some hot, umami and binding flavours.
Adrian described the expected flavour of my custom gin.
“We’re going to have the base, traditional gin ingredients with a bit of citrus from our coriander seed, the lime peel will transition into the deeper sweetness of the strawberry alongside the elements of cinnamon and vanilla, then finishing off with a subtle note of honeysuckle.”
The next step was to decide on measurements for my ingredients, ensuring the flavours would blend together and my key flavours were strong enough.
Again, I felt completely clueless but Adrian walked me through the process and gave recommendations to make sure I wouldn’t end up with an undrinkable mess.
At this point, the “Gingle all the Way” gin started to finish distilling so we headed over to the still.
A large copper still distilling the 'Gingle All the Way' Christmas gin. Photo / Olivia Reid
As instructed, I stuck my finger under the stream of hot liquid and tasted it. Although this first bit of gin that pours from the still is thrown away due to a high acetone content, the Christmas flavours of cinnamon, nutmeg, orange and cherries were clear.
The flavour immediately took me back to drinking mulled wine at the Christmas markets in Europe, and Adrian said it was inspired by “grandma’s boozy Christmas pudding”.
As I measured, ground and cut my ingredients, Adrian confessed that he finds his gin-making classes useful for inspiring his future creativity.
“They’re a bit of ‘R and D’. I use the class participants as guinea pigs to figure out what flavours work together and what ratios are best.”
The still we used for my gin was a small-batch copper still made up of a series of hollow tubes, a design that dates to the 13th century.
The base alcohol sits at the bottom of the still, above which a cheesecloth is filled with the botanicals.
The base alcohol sits at 96.4%abv before being distilled.
When heated, the alcohol turns into a vapour and combines with the botanicals. The vapour then moves through a copper tube placed in cold water to turn the vapour back into a liquid which descends into a cup.
“There’s three parts to the distillation,” Adrian said.
“The head is what we call the first four shots that we throw away. The reason you get that is because, when the alcohol first boils, the first chemicals that come off it are known as fuse oils and they’re much less desirable in terms of flavour profile.
“After the heads, we’re into the hearts. The hearts is what we’re going to collect.
“Every minute or so that flavour is going to change depending on what that vapour is pushing through. Some will respond at different temperatures or different amounts of time.”
We tasted the gin throughout the distilling process. Immediately following the heads, the flavour of strawberry was apparent in the gin, with notes of lime, cardamom and elderflower appearing later in the process.
The heads of the gin comes out to about 400ml of 80%abv liquor.
After that 400ml, the gin may start to taste like “wet dog” or “smelly feet”.
“That’s known as the tails. We don’t want the tails,” Adrian said.
At the end of the process, we had just under 400ml of 83.6%abv gin, then added just over 400ml of filtered water to bring it down to 40%abv.
It was the moment of truth - time to taste my finished gin.
As a novice, behind the usual flavour I could taste hints of my summer flavours. The vanilla, cardamom and cinnamon were initially present with the aftertaste highlighting the strawberry, elderflower and, again, the vanilla.
Potentially the best part of the whole experience was Adrian’s reaction as he told me it was impressively smooth and full-bodied.
He said although gin doesn’t need to be aged, it is best to rest it for a week after distillation.
