our process
Our master distiller carefully balances the myriad flavours of our Indonesian botanicals with the highest quality macedonian Juniper. The objective is to get a balance between the perfect concentration of flavours, and a smooth clean spirit.
Gin is legally defined into 3 categories, Gin, Distilled Gin & London Dry gin. Distilled & London Dry gins are renowned for their superior quality using an authentic distillation process to extract flavour from natural juniper and botanicals. ‘Gin’, on the other hand, is just neutral alcohol mixed with juniper flavouring – this, in our eyes, isn’t ‘real gin’ as it hasn’t been distilled, and it certainly doesn’t taste as good!
At Spice Islands Distilling Co. all of our small batch craft gins are authentically distilled using our handmade 550L copper still ‘Gede’, which was made in Germany by the lovely people at Carl, arguably the best producer of stills on the planet.
Distilled and London Dry gins are tightly regulated definitions. Our Gins always meet these legal requirements starting with imported 96% pure grain ethanol made from the highest quality Australian wheat which is charcoal filtered for maximum purity and smoothness.
This pure spirit is diluted to around 50% with pure water to macerate juniper and other more hardy botanicals in the kettle of our hybrid still. Once maceration is complete the spirit is heated into a vapour which passes thru the column still where it is rectified and purified, concentrating flavour and removing undesirable flavours.
The more delicate botanicals are placed in the botanical basket, this allows them to be gently infused allowing oils and flavour to be extraced without giving it a ‘stewed’ flavour. The hot vapour then finally passes into the condensing column before passing into the collection tanks.
The whole process can take 6-8 hours with our distiller will carefully tasting the distillate as it comes out of the condensation column so he can make a decision on where to cut the spirit. The final distillate is around 94% ABV and bursting with aromas from the Indonesian botanicals and juniper. In fact, the flavour in the spirit is so intense, even at 94% it’s palatable, but we wouldn’t recommend more than a sip!
Our spirit is now ready for dilution, for this we get the cleanest water from deep water artesian wells and perform reverse osmosis (fancy way of saying water purification thru a teeny tiny nano filter) to make it the cleanest purest form of water available on the island. This is then blended with the spirit to the desired alcohol percentage, typically between 40-43% for most of our gins.
