Xander

Just starting out. Due to my circumstances, I'll be limited to an air still. Bought one and have done two 2-bottle test runs with some white whine. Second one turned out not too bad (much more neutral). Learning as I go. Made up a basic 25L sugar wash and, 3/4 through the first set of 4L runs, the still crapped out. The company will replace so that's fine but (sigh). But, after cutting the first 250ml of each run, it came out tasting not too bad as far as its neutrality goes. I'm going to try taking all the tops and tails and doing a second run with just those (with big cuts) just to see what I get. My long term goal will be to try to make my own gin but working out how to do so in a cost-effective manner. Because of the air still and this brand's lack of a suspended basket mechanism, I think I'll be force to do the long-soak (correct me if I'm wrong) which is fine. No panic, right? I understand that there is one method of quicker distilling that leaves the botanicals in the wash so if anybody has experience with that and air stills, let me know. I'm also going to try a simple rum (girlfriend's preference) eventually.

I've heard various definitions of maceration over the years, from "leave untouched and just soak" to "crush very lightly (e.g. to break the skin) and soak". Which one do most of you veterans use?

Just a thought but an indicator about which countries they'll ship from and to would be helpful. I'm looking at doing my first batch of gin in the near future and am trying to find distributors which don't cost a fortune to ship to Canada. For juniper berries, Amazon's best seems to be $31/lb and the last other one I saw (Esutras.com) was something like $17 but $55 on shipping. Does not ship outside US: frontiercoop, lhasakarnak, myspicesage, dandelionbotanical, sfherb Do ship to Canada but adds about $33(US) on average for the cheapest shipping: Spicejungle, mountainroseherbs, starwest-botanicals (pennherb was the cheapest overall, only one cheaper than Amazon) (foodsofnations doesn't seem to know what to do with a Canadian address to estimate shipping) *All searches were based on 1lb Juniper berry quantities.