What is the difference between gin and vodka?

Vodka has to lose the characteristics of its raw material, gin must predominantly taste of juniper, and both start from agricultural alcohol.

Regulation (EU) 2019/787 lays down both categories in Annex I. For vodka, the organoleptic characteristics of the raw materials used and of the by-products of fermentation are selectively reduced. For gin, the taste is predominantly that of juniper.

Both categories have the same minimum of 37.5 percent alcohol by volume. They are therefore not separated by strength.

Vodka is made from fermented potatoes, grains or other agricultural raw materials and is treated so that the flavor of the raw material largely disappears.

That happens by distilling further or by passing the alcohol over activated carbon. Adding aromas is only allowed if they are substances that were already present in the distillate of the fermented raw material.

Coloring is not allowed. Sweetening is allowed up to 8 grams per liter, expressed as invert sugar.

Gin is made by flavouring agricultural alcohol with juniper berries, with the juniper flavour having to predominate.

The regulation has three levels. Ordinary gin may be flavoured with aromas. Distilled gin is redistilled with the botanicals added. London gin goes furthest: only natural plant substances during distillation, the distillate at a minimum of 70% vol, no colouring and at most 0.1 gram of sweetener per litre.

The designation dry may only be used at no more than 0.1 gram of sweetener per litre. For vodka that limit is eighty times as high.

Vodka brings alcohol without a flavour of its own to a mix, gin brings juniper and the other botanicals along, and that determines which bottle suits which cocktail.

In a mix where the fruit or the tonic plays the lead, gin does not disappear: the juniper can still be smelled right through it. Vodka, by contrast, leaves the other ingredients unchanged.

For a classic gin and tonic or a negroni, that botanical flavor is the whole point. Whoever makes a drink in which only the base may take part without a color of its own is better off with vodka.

The law only prescribes that the flavour is predominantly that of juniper, and leaves the choice of the other botanicals free.

That is why gins differ widely: coriander, angelica root, citrus peel, cardamom, lavender or seaweed all occur. Two bottles can meet the same legal description and still have little in common.

With vodka there is less room to play, because there the aim is precisely that the raw material does not come through.

A drink without alcohol may not be called gin, because the legal definition of gin prescribes at least 37.5 percent alcohol by volume.

Bottles that resemble gin but contain no alcohol therefore stand on the shelf with a different designation, for example as alcohol-free spirit or alcohol-free alternative. The botanicals may be the same.

The same applies to vodka: there, too, the minimum of 37.5 percent ABV goes with the name.