newbiboozer wrote:What is a gin bag and if you put crushed stuff in a basket won't it just wash straight through into your product.
It's simply a cotton or natural cloth fibre sheet that you wrap your botanicals in.
You then place it in the path of the vapour as you collect before you condense it back to liquid. We use a packed section before the bag or basket to reflux the spirit to concentrate it and remove any flavour (because you want the gin flavour only unlike when doing rums, brandy or whisky).
So this generally gets the abv up above 92% at least for me. Best I've had from my packed section is about 94%
Now the "basket" we refer to is simply a stainless steel 4" section of pipe that has several holes in the bottom that allows vapour to travel through and you fill with your choice of botanicals to flavour the spirit (if making Cointreau then you'd pack it with dried orange peel, for gin we use the botanicals discussed before).
The basket (mine's a FSD one from Mac) is just an easier way of getting botanicals in the path of vapour. A bag also works fine, others here do that rather than build or buy a basket.
There's no problem with botanic material in your output, sometimes it will drop some oils back down the column into the wash but I've never had any carry through the product condenser into the final spirit.
I air it for 48-72 hours, then water to 42% and age it a month. Gin lovers who've tasted my gin recently side by side with Tanqueray 10 rate this smoother and more flavorful - and this is people who know their gin.
All I can say is give this gin a crack if you like gin and you won't be disappointed.