A Gin Still.... Well Not Really

This, my friends, is a soxhlet extractor! Here's a Wiki entry to elucidate all those questions! Oh, yeah the link is HERE! I soldered that thing up a while ago and never used it because I didn't have a mounting plate for it and wasn't about to spend money to buy one. Then this week a nice little piece of stainless fell on my lap. Just the right size to make a mounting plate!

Assuming you read the wiki entry here's how making gin works. First I place the "botanicals" (all the plants and spices that give flavour to gin) inside the big part in the middle. I bolt the mounting plate to the lid of a saucepan that has been prepared for the purpose. I then fill the saucepan with "solvent" be that alcohol from the store or water (don't know yet which one is better). Put the assembly on a hot plate and connect the condenser to the water tap. Let it cycle for hours (?) until I get a fragrant and concentrated extract from the "botanicals". Then it's just a simple matter to add an appropriate amount of extract to unflavoured alcohol until it tastes like gin! Simple really, no?

Oh, yeah the ever present mug of coffee for size comparison. It's a big mug too, it'll hold one large Tim Horton coffee.