juniper berries hand picked

[Elixir]

hi! I have a question for you guys in my mind the blue juniper berries is what we need for gin, but i just heard some use the green ones? is there truth to this or just a preference?

Thanks

[Welshbrew]

The green berries are next years harvest. Leave them on the tree.

[captnKB]

Make sure they are the right species of Juniper. There are several kinds of juniper and most of them do not make good gin.

[bluestar]

On 10/17/2019 at 8:59 PM, captnKB said:

Make sure they are the right species of Juniper. There are several kinds of juniper and most of them do not make good gin.

Correct, that does not look like Juniperus communis var. depressa, the common juniper, which is the juniper used for making gin. Communis has very short, sharp, pointy needles (leaves). Var. depressa is also a relatively spread-out, lower growing juniper, although not ground crawling, like horizontalis. There are a few others that can be used to augment the communis, but none of the typical nursery junipers will be suitable. Generally, all have edible cones (fruit or berries), but flavor and aroma vary considerably. Some western juniper smell like cat urine to many people.