Not all our customers in the Flavor Solutions sector are bartenders or chefs. In this interview, we talked with Helen Calle-Lin – founder of the Weisshorn Glacier Gin micro-distillery in Chandolin, Switzerland. She told us, why she decided to get a rotary evaporator and which points she considers the most important when working with the setup.

Heidolph: Give us a short introduction about yourself! Who are you, what do you do and what drives you?

Helen: My name is Helen Calle-Lin. I've been involved in the restaurant and bar sector for many years. I'm also a designer. I co-own and designed the Gibson bar in London which is where my friend, Marian Beke, first introduced me to rotary evaporators.

Heidolph: Tell us about your product! What makes it special? How did you come up with the idea?

Helen: I have a small cabin high in the Swiss Alps that I've have been going to for over 18 years. My partner and I love the village there and one day when we were discussing making a gin we thought we should make it there. The village lies in the Val d'Anniviers with views of the Matterhorn and Weisshorn mountains, hence the name of the brand. We then thought about the gin's flavor profile (we wanted it to taste like you’re standing in a fresh alpine meadow surrounded by trees and waterfalls); the bottle shape (we designed our own bottle inspired by Swiss drinking flasks); and the brand was slowly born. It’s really a celebration of the alpine way of life.

Heidolph: How did you come up with the idea of working with a rotary evaporator?

Helen: We couldn't use traditional "hot" distillation techniques due to the small size of the cabin. We already knew that Sacred Gin in London used cold distillation and we enjoyed their gin so we thought we'd go down that route. Ian Hart, the founder of Sacred Gin, has a home-made set up that is very complex. We didn't have his expertise and couldn't have created our own system easily so we did some research and decided on using a Heidolph rotary evaporator. And we're very pleased with the results!

Heidolph: What is the benefit of using a rotary evaporator in your business?

Helen: One of the most important benefits is the level of control you have over the taste of the product. We macerate all our botanicals in high quality spirit individually. This allows us to use exact ratios of botanical to spirit (which vary) and chose the exact amount of days for the maceration of each botanical (some take 3 days; some take 30 days); we experimented to get the best weight ratio and maceration time for each botanical. As we distill below room temperature the original tastes of the botanicals that we capture in the maceration are not changed by heat (think of the flavor differences between fresh orange and marmalade). We designed the taste profile of the gin to remind us of being high in the alps and the rotary evaporator gave us the ability to capture this feeling. For example, with juniper, hot distillation removes or reduces the subtle green herbal notes and you end up with the alpha-pinene and camphor dominated flavors. But cold distillation preserves these subtler flavors. It also produces an amazingly smooth final product. For us, traditional distillation is not an alternative as we don't want to alter the flavors, so the next alternative would be making a compound gin (just maceration and filtration). Some of these can be very good (there's a Canadian brand I like that feels like you are in the forest) but they are colored which didn't fit in with our brand and also, they don't have the same smoothness that running the spirit through the rotary evaporator gives.

Heidolph: What is the key challenge of your process? Which parameters are the most important for a successful outcome?

Helen: The most challenging part of the whole process was getting the flavor profile down. We tried over 30 different botanical macerations in various ratios before we found the one where we thought "Wow, that really feels like the Swiss Alps!". As for the distillation process itself: that is actually easy and fun when you use the rotary evaporator. Just watch out as some botanical macerations bubble and foam a bit more than others (e.g. juniper bubbles angrily in the first 5 minutes but edelweiss is very calm). The Heidolph has a foam brake and a programmable ramp function that means that it’s never a problem though.

Heidolph: A rotary evaporator is a high investment. Why would you say it is worth it?

Helen: Definitely worth it for us as we couldn't have made our gin without it!

Heidolph: Which advice would you give to someone just starting out working with rotary evaporators?

Helen: Have fun and experiment! But just remember, if you're using the rotary evaporator alternating between creating transparent negronis and totally clear peanut butter and jam old fashioneds: distill some plain ethanol through the column in between batches so you don't mix up the flavors!

We want to thank Helen for the inspiring insights and the interesting interview and wish her lots of fun and success for the future!

Follow them on Instagram:
@weisshornglaciergin