Why gin tastes the way it does: ingredients, vapour and production choices
From juniper and coriander to vapour infusion and distillation fractions, this is how gin builds its aroma and why a list of botanicals on its own cannot fully explain what ends up in the glass.
Gin can suggest pine, citrus, incense or even flowers, but those clues do not tell you on their own which ingredient is behind them. To understand where its aromas come from, it helps to follow the full journey: which plants are used, how their compounds are extracted, and why the distillate changes as the process unfolds.
A seed can also bring a floral aroma
If a gin leaves a floral impression, the instinctive assumption is that flowers must have been added. Yet a study combining chemical analysis and sensory evaluation in two gins linked those notes to linalool, a compound also found in the essential oil of coriander seeds. The surprise is simple: a floral impression can come from a seed, not necessarily from petals or dried flowers.
That curiosity helps explain a broader idea. In gin, an aroma does not point unambiguously to a single ingredient, because different plants can share similar aromatic compounds. A list of botanicals is useful for guidance, but it is not an exact key to decoding everything you smell in the glass.
One key idea to begin with
A floral note does not necessarily mean flowers were added.
In the gins studied, linalool helped link that impression to coriander seeds.
The base spirit and the ingredients that flavour it
Gin is not usually made by fermenting juniper. More commonly, it starts with a relatively neutral spirit of agricultural origin, which is then flavoured with plant ingredients. When people talk about botanicals, that is what they mean: seeds, roots, peels and other plant materials that provide much of the drink’s aromatic character.
The clearest route for following how those aromas travel is the redistilled one, where that spirit is distilled again with the botanicals either in contact with the liquid or placed in a basket through which the alcohol-and-water vapours pass. It is not the only way to flavour gin, but it is one of the easiest to follow from plant material to finished distillate.
Juniper, seeds, peels and roots: clues for recognising aromas
Juniper sits at the centre of classic gin character and usually brings reminders of pine and resin. It also comes with a very specific botanical curiosity: those small spheres that almost everyone calls berries are not true berries at all, but fleshy female cones whose scales have thickened and fused together. It does not change the way gin is drunk, but it does remind us that its most emblematic ingredient is unusual from the outset.
Around it, other common botanicals broaden the aromatic map. Coriander seeds are often associated with citrus nuances; lemon or orange peels can bring different expressions of citrus freshness; and angelica root is usually linked to drier notes, sometimes close to incense. These are useful references for imagining a general direction, not a formula for predicting exactly how any bottle will taste.
The coriander example shows why that map needs to be read carefully. If a seed can contribute to a floral note, then flavour clearly does not work like a school chart in which each aroma belongs to just one ingredient. Several plants can push in the same direction, and the production process also changes how those compounds reach the final result.
Aromatic pointers
- Juniper: reminders of pine and resin.
- Coriander seeds: citrus nuances and compounds that can also be linked to floral notes.
- Lemon or orange peels: different citrus expressions.
- Angelica root: dry notes, sometimes close to incense.
How aromas move from plant to distillate
In redistilled gin, botanicals can be added in different ways. One option is for them to be in contact with the liquid that will be distilled. Sometimes that contact happens before heating, so the alcohol and water can begin extracting compounds from the plant material first: that is pre-maceration. Another option is to place the botanicals in a basket positioned so that the alcohol vapours pass through them without the ingredients being submerged in the liquid.
Then comes a basic step of distillation: as the mixture is heated, part of it turns into vapour; later, when cooled, that vapour becomes liquid again. That change from vapour back to liquid is condensation. The distillate collected at the end is no longer simply the starting spirit, but a liquid that has carried over and gathered some of the aromatic compounds extracted from the botanicals.
| Aspect | Liquid contact | Vapour basket |
|---|---|---|
| How they are used | The botanicals go into the liquid being distilled. | The botanicals are placed in a basket through which vapours pass. |
| Possible prior step | There may be a maceration stage before heating. | They are not submerged in the liquid. |
| Shared outcome | Some of the extracted compounds end up in the distillate after condensation. | Some of the extracted compounds end up in the distillate after condensation. |
Why vapour does not necessarily mean less extraction
A comparative trial showed that vapour infusion does not necessarily mean lower extraction. Under the conditions studied, nine of the ten terpenes analysed appeared at higher concentrations in distillates obtained by vapour infusion. Linalool was the exception. Put simply, terpenes are a family of aromatic compounds common in many plants, and the result shows that changing the method does not push every compound in the same direction.
The useful lesson is not that one system is better than the other. What the study supports is something more precise: the extraction method changes the balance between compounds. That balance helps explain why two gins made with similar botanicals can end up smelling and tasting different.
It is also worth remembering the limit of the finding. The study measures ten compounds under specific conditions; it does not measure the whole aroma as perceived, nor does it prove greater sensory intensity, more smoothness or universal preference on its own. Chemistry offers valuable clues, but it does not replace everything a person perceives when smelling or tasting a gin.
The distillate is not the same from start to finish
The story does not end once the aromas have left the botanicals. During distillation, the liquid being collected changes over time. If you think of fractions as portions of distillate collected at different moments, it becomes easier to see why making gin is also an act of selection.
Jan Hodel’s research found that, under the conditions studied, different terpene families evolved differently during the process: some showed higher concentrations at the beginning, while others increased later. That means the decision about which portions are kept together and which are left out helps define the final aromatic composition. Knowing which ingredients went into the still tells only part of the story.
After that selection, the distillate can be adjusted with water to reach the desired alcoholic strength. There is no need for universal figures to grasp the central idea: between the original plant and the finished drink, several production choices influence the result.
What a list of botanicals tells you, and what it leaves out
A list of botanicals does offer valuable clues. It lets you picture a juniper axis, anticipate whether the profile may lean towards citrus, dryness or resin, and make better sense of certain aroma descriptions. But it is not enough to reconstruct a gin, because at least two decisive pieces are missing: how those compounds were extracted and which fractions of the distillate ended up in the final blend.
It also helps to separate three levels that are often mixed up: chemical composition, sensory perception and personal preference. If one method gives higher concentrations of certain compounds, that does not automatically make it superior, just as a floral note does not reveal on its own which ingredient produced it. One of gin’s most revealing curiosities is that its flavour comes not only from the ingredients, but from how they are handled.