You will definitely want to decant your Christmas pudding gin into pretty bottles if it is a Christmas gift. As advocates of tradition, we distilled this tipple with 13 festive botanicals including clove, cinnamon, cassia bark, orange and cherry. Simmer gently for 4-6 hours (see Kitchen tip, above), checking the water level every couple of hours to ensure it doesn’t dry out – top up if needed with boiling water.

You don’t want one of those fancy botanical versions, as they are expensive and all the subtle flavours that make them expensive will be lost. Toffee Vodka – this popular flavoured vodka uses just two ingredients and is so easy to make at home. Our panel loved the fragrant orange, whole cherries and cinnamon, and described the texture as “just right”, making it firm enough to portion without crumbling.At this stage, you can rebalance the flavours if necessary, by adding a little extra sugar, fruit or spice and leaving for a couple of days longer. Also makes an excellent participant in the Sacred Negroni - tried and tested with a twist of orange peel. A longer first steam allows the sugars to caramelise well, giving a richer flavour, so steam for 6 hours if you prefer a darker colour.

After Hed Bid The Financial World A Not-So-Fond Farewell, He Dusted Down His Knowledge From His Cambridge Natural Sciences Degree And Ploughed His Energies Into Experimenting With Reduced Pressure Distillation. litre ceramic pudding basin (or Pyrex bowl) with a little butter and line the base with a disc of baking paper.Grease the paper well with butter, then,keeping both together, fold a 2-3cm pleat in the middle to allow for expansion. Best sipped on Christmas Day, in front of a raging fire, top with clementine tonic or stirred down in a Martini or Martinez. No Christmas pudding is quite perfect without being lit on fire; to create a subtle flambé flavour, we’ve gently smoked it.