The neutral spirits: Gin and vodka

Unlike brandy and whiskey, there's not much mysterious about the production of gin and vodka. No country or region touts its superiority to the others for producing the finest of these liquors. Neutral spirits like gin and vodka are similar to bottled waters: very few regulations or restrictions apply that help to protect the unknowing consumer. Image is everything, and brand loyalties have little to do with quality.

Thanks to prohibition, gin is the most notorious of all spirits in the United States. Although the gin we drink nowadays is nothing like the fiery bathtub and Old Tom varieties of yesteryear, it still has a reputation for being difficult to enjoy because of its heavy juniper flavor.

A personal favorite of mine for mixing cocktails, gin has suffered in popularity thanks to its bland brother, vodka. Since the early 1950s, vodka has become more and more popular, diluting the American cocktail scene.

Despite their very different tastes, gin and vodka can be distilled from the same ingredients. Using continuous stills, pure (or raw) alcohol is made from a variety of mashes at proofs higher than 180. A neutral spirit (liquor above 90 percent, or 180 proof) has so few impurities that it's almost impossible to discern whether it was distilled from grain, rice, or corn.

United States law requires that neutral spirits go through a charcoal filtering process to remove any impurities left after distillation. Vodka producers, depending on the "quality" desired, will redistill the spirits up to three times before blending them with water and bottling them. These additional distillations do nothing to distinguish vodka from pure medicinal alcohol; only ad campaigns can do that. I've never understood people who order vodka and soda or just plain vodka on the rocks. These flavorless beverages serve little purpose and provide little enjoyment, other than deadening perception.

Gin, on the other hand, has an entirely different reputation. During its initial popularity, spirits were judged by their aroma, and gin was king. Good gins could readily be detected, practically from the other side of the room. Most noticeable of all the fragrances characterizing gin is the juniper, though other herbs and roots, such as anise, fennel, and coriander, are used in the rectifying (or distilling) process.

In the old days, dry vermouth was a necessary component to dampen the overwhelming aromatic qualities of the gin of a Martini. But to compete with vodka, producers now lighten their gin so that even the slightest hint of vermouth is found to be undesirable to most Martini aficionados.

Gin can be flavored in a variety of ways. The simplest and least expensive way is to buy juniper and citrus oils from a pharmacy and then add them to neutral grain spirits. This is how the bathtub gin of the 1920s was produced. Bootleggers who could get their hands on medicinal alcohol only needed a little water and a few flavorings to stock the nearest speakeasy.

Gin (and flavored vodka) is infused during distillation, typically utilizing stills equipped with a column of shelves resting above a pot and in front of a condenser. Citrus rinds, juniper berries, and other flavoring agents are on the shelves. As vapors rise from the heated mash, essential oils from the agents are released into the alcohol, which retains the oils' flavors and aromas after it has been condensed.

The third and most common method today is to steep whatever flavoring agents are desired in high-proof grain spirits. As the herbs and spices soak, they give off strong flavors into the alcohol. To further purify the alcohol and to refine the taste, a second and sometimes a third distillation is used. The resulting alcohol is essentially pure and colorless, but replete with juniper. The liquor is blended with water, lowering its proof to about 90, and then it's bottled.

I would argue that vodka is really just an incomplete gin, sort of like food without flavor. By classic cocktail standards, modern flavored vodkas, such as the popular citrus and pepper varieties, are really just fruit-flavored gins - which makes me wonder how popular a juniper-flavored Absolut would be.