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Formula for Making Hollands Gin

A gin infused with juniper, turpentine, caraway, and sweet fennel oils.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Caraway and fennel share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 51 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Formula for Making Hollands Gin

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the oils in a corked bottle and agitate for 2-3 days.

  2. Gradually add the mixture to the clean corn spirit or plain gin until the desired flavor is achieved.

  3. Store the gin for some time for best results.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Caraway + fenneltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Fennel + corntop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Caraway + corntop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oil of juniper
Supplies the main aroma that gives the gin its characteristic flavor.
Oil of caraway
Adds a sharp, aromatic note to the flavor blend.
Oil of sweet fennel
Adds a sweet, aromatic note that rounds out the blend.
Clean corn spirit or plain gin
Serves as the alcohol base that carries and dissolves the flavoring oils.

The step that matters

Adding the oil mixture to the spirit. Essential oils are concentrated and dissolve poorly in alcohol, and their flavor is strong, so adding them gradually and tasting as you go prevents an overpowering or cloudy result.

Swap the caraway

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fennel, corn):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fennel, corn. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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