Still Magic
The Books
Book Reviews – Still Magic
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Excellent book on gin, making your own gin and applicable to creating many other products
“The author gives great background on the different gins and how they are made and then gives a step by step guide on how to create your own recipes. His focus on the basics, the key principles, how to establish and record your recipe creation and how to evaluate your creations is not only applicable to gin but to any other alcohol, baking, fermenting, well just about anything creative!”
Book Reviews – Gin Ventures
A much needed “How to set up a Distilling Business Guide” and How to Make Gin
“Gin, Gin,
The second book in the Still Magic Series is out now by Marcel Thompson. The second volume writ large, as Thompson likes to say often. While called Gin Ventures and is a hefty 64 pages longer than the initial tome, Still Magic, it would be most relevant to anyone starting a distillery – not just the potential ginners!
Now I am biased as each one of our Gin team for the major Gin course we teach each year gets a mention by Thompson. However, the volume is filled with cogent advice from Thompson and via quoting other experts, and is replete with many other stories, anecdotes and the relaying of the experiences of others. Both his books should be bought and read by all budding and even current craft distillers.
One slight omission here. In third party distilling it is important to maintain the rights to the formula made and how to deal with a move to a new facility or distillery. Otherwise there is little to fault here – a few “you”, instead of “your” errors in place, but that is a niggly feature of current day electronic spell checkers.
This is a must read for many and a welcome addition to the “How-to” (set up a business) literature – sorely lacking for the distilling industry. I read the book in one short four hour sitting and enjoyed all of it. It resonated with a small business owner and will be valuable for any other budding entrepreneur for its overall lessons. Covid issues permitting, Thompson will be in Lexington, KY in May 2022 to teach distillers directly about gin. From production to marketing and beyond. We cannot wait to meet him again.
In the meantime, read both books and learn how to set up any type of craft distillery and then to make some fine gin in the process. And be on the lookout for a third volume which might be in the works.