Juniper Berries in Mead Making

The flavor of juniper berries is often described as piney, resinous, and slightly citrusy, with a bitter and slightly sweet taste. Whilst these all may be fair descriptions, none of these really come close to describing the unique flavour of Juniper Berries, which are actually more like a pine cone than anything else, they are certainly not berries. But I am not going to ruin the fun, let's call them berries.

 Juniper is the flavour we associate with Gin, it is the governing taste. To be Gin, the Juniper needs to be present.

In meads it is an interesting and challenging flavour to incorporate with others. Looking to the world of Craft Gins will reveal some flavour combinations that others have found work, coming up with your own is of course the challenge for many, but inspiration is abundant.

The extraction of flavours from Juniper berries depends very much on the alcohol level used. I do not find any where near the same level of flavour extraction from Juniper berries when steeping them in a mead as I do when steeping in sprits. I also find that I miss a lot of the woody notes if I use a low abv liquid to extract the flavours.

With all of this in mind, I use Juniper as an extract made with a high ABV spirit. This gives critical control over the amount used and the best extraction of flavours. It also allows for a specific blended extract to be made where the Juniper is incorporated with other botanicals. This is effectively what is known as a bathtub Gin.

I do also use them whole post fermentation, but this is seldom my only source of their flavour, the tincture usually comes in as well.

The Deep is a Mead that makes good use of the Juniper flavour profile. We get many describing this as "like a gin cocktail".