There are many ways to make gin. There are different stills, different ways of treating botanicals, and even whether you chose to distil ingredients independently or all together. One of the most interesting differences in how gin is made lies between single shot (or “one shot”) and multi-shot (also known as “concentrate”) methods.
This article explains the differences between the two and why producers choose either method.
Distinct distilling methods
In the realm of gin, the terms “single shot” and “multi-shot” refer to distinctive methods of distillation.
In single shot distillation, the botanicals are distilled in just the right amount, producing a spirit that captures their essence without any excess.
It’s textbook gin distillation. You add Neutral Spirit, water and botanicals and you distil them. Once the spirit starts to flow you make a hearts cut discarding the rest and once it’s all settled, you cut it with water to your desired bottling strength.
Multi-shot distillation involves an extra step.
A multi-shot method deliberately uses an overabundance of botanicals in order to produce a distillate with a highly concentrated flavour.
Once the hearts cut has been taken and the distillate has been made, the spirit is blended with more Neutral Spirit. This increases the volume of liquid and adjusts the flavour profile of the concentrated distillate back to normal intensity. This is sometimes described as being ‘stretched out”. Just as it always does, the final step then involves diluting the blend with water, adjusting the alcohol content to the ideal strength for bottling.
Making gin using one method or the other has big implications. Particularly on the commercial aspects of operations…
Clearing up some big misunderstandings:
Let’s start off with the biggest misconception. Multi-shot gins are not designed as a one-shot recipe that has been ‘stretched out’ with more bulk spirit to increase the volume. That would simply result in a rubbish gin.
Multi-shot recipes are intentionally designed to be out of balance and overburdened, until they have more spirit added to unfurl the flavours. They need the extra Neutral Spirit to work.
This is accounted for it in the way the still is loaded (increasing the grams used in the recipe). It’s accounted for in the infusion time (often longer) and the way it’s distilled (usually with added focus on increasing reflux). It’s also concidered during the decisions made around selecting the hearts cut.
The second misconception is that you can easily make the switch between one and other method.
You can’t just take a single shot recipe and multiply the grams by how much you are adding once you have your cut. The art of flavour extraction, saturation, ABV, heat and hearts cuts don’t work that way. Compound abundance and botanical science doesn’t work that way.
While many avid Single shot distilling disciples will swear it’s not – here’s the third big misconception. It is possible to create almost identical flavours using both methods (up to a point, see below).
While a side by side taste difference is hard to create a match, you can get it to close enough that most drinkers are unable to differentiate between the two.
It’s not a big vs small, multi-national vs craft divide, nor quality vs cheap gin.
There are many respected craft producers who use multi-shot methods to make their gins. Tarquin’s, Hayman’s, Campfire Gin to name a few, just as big producers such as Hendrick’s or Beefeater do. There are several big operations that rely on huge stills rather than do a multi-shot method, such as Plymouth and Bombay Sapphire.
It’s a choice and while there’s a lot of talk around the ethos of each – there’s no simple delineation as to who does what.
So what are the reasons a distiller might choose to use multi-shot distillation?
Increased capacity. Utilising the multi-shot method can significantly increase the distiller’s production capacity. Because this process involves blending the highly concentrated gin with a neutral spirit, a much larger volume of gin can be produced from a single batch of distillation. This increased volume can help meet higher demand without requiring bigger equipment.
Cost efficiency. The multi-shot method often results in lower production costs. This efficiency stems from the time saved per batch during distillation. By creating a concentrated distillate per still run, you need far fewer still runs. This saves on labour, energy, and other associated production costs. Let alone the environmental costs too…
Transportation ease. If the bottling site is located far from the distillery, a concentrated gin can be more convenient to transport. Since the concentrate is later added to with more NGS and then diluted at the bottling site, this can mean shipping less volume, reducing the logistical challenges of transportation.
There are also reasons a distiller might choose not to use multi-shot distillation:
Neutral spirit quality. In multi-shot distillation, more neutral spirit is added to the gin concentrate. If the neutral spirit is not of a high enough quality or has its own distinctive flavour, it will negatively impact the overall taste profile of the gin. This affects the perceived smoothness of a gin in particular.
No requirement. Not all distillers need to produce gin in large volumes. Depending on the size of still, the single shot method may be more than they need to make per batch.
Botanical concentration. Some botanicals may be difficult to concentrate in the flavour doses required for multi-shot distillation. Fresh citrus peels and fresh fruit for example. This can result in a loss of subtlety or complexity in the gin’s flavour profile. Single shot distillation can provide a more accurate representation of these botanicals, as it doesn’t require capturing them in the same level of concentration in a single distillation.
To conclude, the choice between multi-shot and single shot distillation depends largely on the distiller’s goals. It is primarily a financial and competency decision for most. That said it also involves the flavour profile they’re aiming to achieve and size of still they are operating.
Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, shaping the identity of the gin produced. Each method can rightly claim to make fantastic products too!
