An extract from Gin is just the tonic

Sean Harrison, Plymouth Gin’s Master Distiller, crushes a handful of juniper berries in his hand. He lets them fall through a glass funnel into a glass bulb filled with pure grain alcohol. An hour before we’d been standing in front of the distillery’s great copper still — the grown-up version of the little chemistry experiment we’re enacting here — which has been going strong since 1855, though the whole operation is much older than that. No juniper, no gin: as simple as that — without the genièvre that gives the drink its name you’d only be making flavoured vodka, legally speaking.

Full article at TimesOnline Food & Drink

Flickr image from oops’ photostream.