It has got to this: I’m considering gin and tonic on a Monday morning. It’s Charles’s fault. Charles is a very nice man with whom I wandered around the gardens of the lakes in Italy. He spent his working life in the drinks industry, and pointed out that as lovely as expensive gin is, you could buy a cheap bottle and flavour it yourself for half the price, and end up with something equally good. That was all the encouragement I needed.
Traditionally, gin is subtly flavoured with herbs such as cardamom, coriander and juniper, and fruit such as cucumber, lemon and orange peel. Cardamom can be hard to grow, and oranges may be a push, but you probably have plenty of other ingredients in your garden that will flavour gin.
If coriander is going to flower, collect the fresh green seeds – they impart a truly clean flavour. I collect juniper berries from a spot near my mother’s house for the same reason. Homegrown and freshly dried, they taste far more exciting than their store-bought counterparts. Citrus peel, coriander and juniper should be infused for a week or so; cardamom added for just a day or two. With rosemary, anything more than three days and a few sprigs is overpowering. I am experimenting with basil because I’ve read about a basil-cucumber martini that must be tried. The recipe called for half a cup of chopped basil, but I went with whole sprigs instead. I’m on week two of infusion and I think it’s about right; if you chop the basil, leave it for no more than a week.
Any infusion must go into a very clean jar with a tight lid. Bad bacteria will sour the drink. As for how much you add, it depends how fast you want to get there. I add a teaspoon of coriander and juniper berries, half that of cardamom, and taste regularly till I am happy. (Any excuse to drink gin.)
Elderflowers in gin are lovely, but you’ve missed that moment. Elderberries are equally good. Either dry them or make a simple syrup of sugar and elderberries boiled up gently. (Raw, they can make you sick.) Remove all the green stems which are poisonous in large quantities. You need a scant cup of syrup to a litre of gin and it makes a wonderful cocktail with champagne.
Another seasonal gin is blackberry and apple (works equally well with vodka or cheap whisky). Take roughly equal parts of brambles, apples and sugar, around 200g of each for a litre of gin. Chop up the apples, unless you are using crab apples, which look lovely left whole in the bottle. Place the washed fruit and sugar in a sterile jar, pour over the gin, put the lid on tightly and give the whole thing a good shake. Do this every so often for the next four weeks and you should have a lovely deep purple liqueur in under a month. Strain and decant into pretty bottles. This gin works wonderfully with champagne or prosecco.
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