Homemade Christmas Gin

At Christmas it’s always great to have something homemade to give as a gift to friends and family. This year my gift was the gift of homemade Christmas gin!

The decanter is from Denmark

Homemade Christmas Gin

How to make your own homemade Christmas spiced gin

No, I’ve not started an illegal still in my flat. The way I made Christmas gin is to flavour gin or vodka with festive spices and other botanicals known as the ‘bathtub method’. This name for making gin was made popular during prohibition when people would flavour illegally distilled alcohol literally in their bathtubs.

The method is to pick your botanicals and to leave them to macerate in the alcohol for as little or as long as you need to get the flavour you want. For example you can make strawberry basil gin by macerating the soft fruit and herbs (separately) overnight or just for 24 hours. For my Christmas gin I chose a longer period of about two weeks and ended up with the deep golden colour as the alcohol drew it out from the spices.

Sign up to download your free printable Christmas gin recipe here!

1 – Choose your base spirit

When distilling, gin starts from a neutral grain spirit (usually) which is then flavoured with botanicals – one of which is juniper. In the UK and EU to be legally called a gin the spirit has to be predominately juniper flavoured. So when picking your base you probably want a juniper led gin.

However if you only have vodka, this acts like a neutral grain spirit, so you need to add additional juniper to make it a gin. Also if you have a gin that isn’t very junipery, you can add more juniper berries. These can be found in supermarkets as they can be used in lots of recipes at this time of year.

Check out some savoury recipes using gin here

2 – Add your spices:

My selection of botanicals – coriander, allspice, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and cardamom.

Coriander seed and cinnamon are traditional botanicals for gin, I absolutely adore gin with cardamom too! The nutmeg, cloves and allspice were the Christmas addition to the flavours. For this particular bottle I started with a standard London dry gin that we had knocking around the flat. No one would drink this gin given our huge selection of more interesting ones, so it seemed like a good way to make it special.

I also made another batch starting with some normal vodka. As mentioned to make this into a gin I needed to add juniper berries, which I got from Waitrose. You can add your juniper a 24-48 hours ahead of the other botanicals & taste to ensure it’s ginny before adding everything else.

A top tip to get the most flavour out of the juniper is to crush the berries before adding to the alcohol, this helps release the oils, which add flavour.

The vodka needed additional juniper to make it into gin

I added the botanicals a little haphazardly. A couple of cinnamon sticks, a few cloves, a tea spoon of allspice etc and I think slightly less of the cloves / allspice would work best!

3 – Then wait a week

After a week allowing the flavours to meld with the booze, I tried the gin and checked to see if anything else was needed. I would recommend regularly tasting your Christmas spiced gin during the process so you can adjust if required – just like cooking.

4 – Add your fresh or dried citrus

The main addition I added at this stage was citrus. For me gin has to have a citrus component. Whilst this can be emphasised by the coriander seed, a fresh citrus peel brings a great zing to the nose and the palate. So the gin got Seville orange and lemon peel – thanks Tiva for bringing these back for me! The vodka got grapefruit and lemon peel.

5 – When finished, strain & bottle up

After another few days (and copious tasting!) I decided it was ready. A pack of mini bottles was purchased from Amazon and the bottling up for gifts commenced!