Spirits: A local gin distillery with a special touch.

There’s no question – gin’s the in thing. Once regarded a poor man’s drink, these days, an event with no gin bar is almost considered a non-event. Curious, POPULAR MECHANICS popped in on Craft Link, the home of Ginologist, an award-winning gin brand rooted (and distilled) with science in mind.

MEET JACQUES CELLIERS, the (future master)

distiller behind Ginologist gin, and one in a handful of distillers in South Africa with an international certification and a background in chemistry. But what does chemistry have to do with gin, you ask?

Ginologist gin is considered both purist and a scientifically distilled gin, something related to the process that Craft Link uses to make its celebrated gin, as well as the quality control.

‘We use a scientific method by changing single variables at a time. It is a constant process of changing tiny variables, and eliminating certain factors, to get to the flavour profile that we want,’ says Jacques.

As a spirit, gin is easy for distillers looking to differentiate themselves from a flavour perspective. Craft Link, however, uses a more scientific approach.

‘We try to apply this scientific thinking as much as possible in the distilling side of things,’ continues Jacques. ‘One of the nice qualities about gin is that because it’s such a flexible alcohol to play around with, you can kind of come up with any flavour that your imagination can think of. We’ve got gin distilled with everything from coffee and milk to chocolate and chilli.’

To start the gin-making process, Jacques uses a base alcohol, and for the distillation he uses two main processes – maceration into distillation and vapour infusion.

‘You can either throw in botanicals, let the alcohol pull out the flavour, and then bottle that – so no distillation happens, or you can take other flavour compounds, and blend that in until you get what you want … but then you can’t actually call it a distilled alcohol product, because no distillation process happens,’ explains Jacques.

For Craft Link gins, the botanicals are added and then left for a certain amount of time before distilling the

gin. Vapour infusion – when vapour passes through botanicals – works better for soft, floral notes such as rose geranium and rooibos. If you add herbs and flowers directly to the pot, you risk a burnt flavour. Different ways of distilling give off different flavours: ‘What we do is take single ingredients or single botanicals, and then distil that so we get a base flavour,’ says Jacques. ‘When we’re developing recipes, you can actually mix and match between different flavours, and see what kind of range of flavours you want. And from there, we can create a proper recipe that you can then fully distil.’

Once a recipe has been developed, water, base alcohol, juniper berries and botanicals go into the still, which then gets closed up and left for 24 hours to extract the flavour. It’s the different essential oils that carry the flavour in botanicals. Water is added before the distillation process begins.

‘The whole point of distillation is it’s basically a difference of volatilities. That’s what you’re

aiming for. Alcohol is much more volatile than water. The point of distillation is to separate alcohol from all the other things that you don’t want because of its high volatility. With water, your alcohol will cling to some water compounds and it therefore makes the distillation process a bit slower and a bit more controlled.’

The stills at Craft Link are made of copper, a traditional material used for centuries in the gin-making process. Copper was readily available and malleable, but from a scientific perspective, it is also useful because it reacts with the alcohol to create copper sulphites, which then dissolve in water and don’t get passed through.

‘Just by pure fluke, we’ve actually been distilling with the best material from day one,’ Jacques says, laughing while looking at his Iron -Giantreminiscent still.

The tubular shape of the still was purposely chosen to collect and condense as much steam as possible – the more interaction with copper, the cleaner the alcohol becomes. After the gin is distilled, it is then chill-filtered at 5–7°C and passed through a paper filter. This part of the process is crucial – gin is usually consumed cold (either stored in the fridge or added to ice), but if it isn’t chill-filtered and someone adds ice, the essential oils will turn the drink murky.

Once filtered, the gin is ready to be bottled, corked and labelled. From gin infused with edible glitter to an upcoming alcohol-free variation (watch this space) and a range of bespoke gins (like the company’s popular Jin Gin for celebrity chef J’Something), the sky is the limit for craft distilleries such as Craft Link.

Top: With a traditional set-up and distillation process, it’s the scientific approach prior to distillation that gives these boutique gin makers an added edge. / Above, left: Ginologist labels evoke the periodic table of elements and reinforce the idea that the gin has been expertly distilled with science in mind. / Above, right: Citrus, Floral and Spice Gin, the three varieties in Ginologist’s portfolio – for now.