Gin & Tonic Ale question

So re-hashing an idea I had a while back, im finally going to try my Gin & Tonic Ale!

Im going to use a basic Irish Red Ale recipe, (2-row base plus munich or something and some EKG hops and WLP004, nothin fancy). I was then going to soak an ounce of Juniper berries and 1 oz of coriander in a few ounces of gin for a few weeks and dump it all into the secondary.

My question is - Should I worry about infection from dumping the gin potion (Juniper Berries and all) into the secondary and racking on top of it without any boiling or pasteurizing and what not? I feel that the gin would be pretty sterile as it is and thus make infection unlikely.....

Thoughts?

If you are soaking the spices in gin for a couple of weeks you will extract the flavor from them. Strain the gin and just dump the liquid in. Either way it should probably be fine, however I would think having less solid matter to rack off of would be better.

How are you going to get your tonic (quinine) flavor in there?

I'm not one hundred percent sure, but wouldn't that gin sanitize the spices? Even if it didn't, they're spices, and not likely to be highly infected with stuff anyway.

Wait, are the juniper berries pickled in vinegar? That could be a problem, but again, I would think the gin would kill any acetobacteria.

No worries about infection after disinfecting the spices in alcohol for a few weeks, but I second the question about the tonic portion of the equation.

If you're planning to add the flavour to the beer, Jeffrey Morgenthaler » How to Make Your Own Tonic Water has a good recipe for concentrated tonic syrup and some info on sourcing cinchona bark. Another option would be adding tonic water at serving time, in which case you might want to consider making the beer a bit stronger to allow for dilution.

Or, of course, you may not care for tonic at all, in which case I'd recommend changing the name of the beer to avoid future confusion.

Oh, and you may want to research oude genever, which is a close relative of gin that's earthier, maltier, and sweeter than the (neutral spirits based) London dry gins.

Just for all to know, I called it G&T ale because it was the first thing I could think of. Hah, I guess besides gin nothing else makes it a gin and tonic.

I figured the Juniper spice would get soaked up in the gin, so Ill just be adding that. I agree that it would be okay with no infections. I decided to add the coriander just like I would a normal beer, flame out.



......oh, and no pickled juniper berries

I know this is quite an old thread I am resurrecting, but any chance of finding out how this beer turned out?