Honey in Gin

[DSW]

Hi all, we are doing a custom gin for a retail client. They want honey in the finished product. I've never done an Old Tom. Thoughts on how much honey we should use on a % volume basis? Cheers. 

[bluestar]

Honey is not as sweet as sugar. Honey is a heavy syrup, you have to dilute it almost 1:1 to make something akin to simple syrup. We roughly will use 50% more honey by weight to get the equivalent to granular sugar, but keep in mind that also means you have to reduce the amount of liquid by the volume of honey, roughly.

[DSW]

Thanks.

We've been using a honey syrup (1:1) to do a portion of the proofing down. I'm using 1.5% of the honey syrup on a volume basis. The honey doesn't contribute as much flavor as I'd like, but anything over 1.5% starts to get murky and yellowish.