Making spirits is a lengthy process, and not all of it happens here at the distillery.
In the diagram below, you can see all of the end-to-end steps needed to complete the process.
Growing
Maris Otter barley is a classic UK variety highly prized by brewers
Malting
Malting softens the barley and makes the starches accessible to the brewer
Mashing
Mashing in hot water converts the starches into fermenting sugar
Fermenting
Yeast is added, converting the barley sugar into a distillers 'beer'
Wash Distilling
A first distillation in the pot still strips the alcohol from the beer and produces a liquid of about 30% ABV
Spirit Distilling
The second distillation in our reflux column still with 30 equivalent plates further refines the alcohol up to 96% ABV
Filtering
The spirit is filtered several times through activated charcoal to remove any impurities.
Gin Rectifying
If we're making gin, the spirit is redistilled through a reflux chamber where the botanicals are vapour infused. We use a single-shot method where just enough botanicals are used and we don't add neutral spirit after.
Resting
The gin is rested to allow the full flavour to develop
Bottling
Finally, the spirit can be bottled to be sold and enjoyed in fine cocktails
By comparison, most distilleries these days don’t bother with all of these steps.
Most modern gins are made using industrial ethanol of varying provenance, bypassing most of the hard work. Of course, we know that making gin is not easy even if you buy in the base alcohol, but with so much grain grown locally, why wouldn’t we create our spirits from local ingredients?
Growing
Maris Otter barley is a classic UK variety highly prized by brewers
Malting
Malting softens the barley and makes the starches accessible to the brewer
Mashing
Mashing in hot water converts the starches into fermenting sugar
Fermenting
Yeast is added, converting the barley sugar into a distillers 'beer'
Wash Distilling
A first distillation strips the alcohol from the beer and produces a liquid of about 30% ABV
Spirit Distilling
The second distillation further refines the alcohol of absolute purity of 96% ABV
Filtering
The spirit is filtered through activated charcoal and then fine filter papers to remove impurities
Buy factory-made ethanol
Gin Rectifying
The spirit is redistilled in a pot still, where the botanicals are often boiled rather than vapour infused, and further bought-in spirit may be added afterwards.
Resting
The gin will possibly be rested.
Bottling
The spirit is bottled
Making the Barley Wash
Hobson’s Brewery in nearby Cleobury Mortimer take care of the malting and brewing portion of the process. They’ve spent many years building a supply chain of locally grown barley to make their beers. We take an un-hopped distiller’s beer of 7% ABV. The beer wash is fermented slowly at a low temperature to prevent any awkward flavours from developing that might concentrate during distillation.
Wash Distillation
Our first distillation is called a stripping run, as it strips the alcohol out of the raw beer in a pot still employing some reflux with copper and stainless steel springs. The resulting low wines are 30%ABV.
Spirit Distillation
The second distillation uses the more high-tech reflux column still, equipment not typically available to gin makers, during which the spirit undergoes roughly thirty equivalent distillations in one long process called fractional distillation. It takes three days to produce a spirit of up to 96% ABV, the strength depending on how the distiller controls the input energy and output flow according to the desired style of spirit. This process is founded on Raoult's Law.
Filtering
We pump the spirit through activated charcoal for several hours to remove any trace impurities. Charcoal is favoured for filtration partly because of the large surface area and its porous nature, which binds to impurities, particularly volatile organic compounds. This also explains why casks are burnt on the inside to provide a layer of charcoal. At this point the spirit can be blended with purified water, rested, and bottled as our award-winning Barley Vodka. For gin a few more steps are required. After all of the hard work and nearly four weeks after the grain was first mashed, we finally arrive at the starting point for making a gin.
You get an idea why some gin producers choose to just buy in their base alcohol, but we absolutely love the process. We feel that the authenticity of seeing our spirit all the way through the process gives a much greater sense of provenance to the final product.
Gin Rectifying
To make our spirit into gin, we add botanicals which are placed in a muslin bag and soaked in the spirit overnight to macerate. The next morning, that bag of soggy berries, blossoms and peels gets suspended inside the column of the still, the boiler is started, and the flavours are vapour infused into the spirit in a process taking most of the day. Distiller's ceramic discs are packed in the lyne arm to provide reflux, which maintains a higher alcohol content throughout the distillation, compressing water vapour into the tails.
Resting
Gin needs time to rest after it’s made. The flavours need time to meld together and solidify into the final taste. Some botanicals take longer than others to mature, and the character of the gin changes quite dramatically during these important weeks of resting. A gin tasted the day it is made will be entirely different after several weeks of resting, so this vital part of the process cannot be rushed.
Bottling
Finally, it’s time to put the spirit into bottles. At this point, it will have been over two months end-to-end in the making, and every bit of effort and every hour of hard work has resulted in an exquisite liquid that we're proud to call the pure spirit of Shropshire.