Gin substitutes

Effectively homemade gin, and the closest substitute there is, because juniper is the one botanical gin legally must contain.

Best for

cured and gravlax-style salmon, game and venison sauces, braised cabbage and sauerkraut, pork, marinades, cocktails at a pinch

Crush the berries with the flat of a knife rather than grinding them, or the liquid turns cloudy and slightly bitter. Add a strip of lemon or grapefruit peel and a few coriander seeds if you want it closer to a London dry. It will be less complex and less polished than real gin, but in a pan or a cure the resemblance is strong.

A botanical, herbal, wormwood-based fortified wine, which puts it in the same aromatic family even though it is not a spirit.

Best for

seafood, chicken, mussels, pan sauces, braised vegetables, risotto

At around 16 to 18 percent alcohol it is far weaker, and it is acidic where gin is not, so a pan sauce made with vermouth tastes brighter and grassier with a hint of bitterness rather than clean pine. In cooking, that trade is usually fine and sometimes better. It is also open in most fridges already, which gin often is not.

Gin without the botanicals, which is literally what it is, so it does the same physical job with none of the flavor.

Best for

cured salmon, sauces, deglazing, flambe, cocktails where gin is a minor part

The dish comes out clean and unremarkable: you keep the alcohol's ability to carry aroma and cut fat, and you lose the pine entirely. A gin-cured salmon made with vodka tastes like plain salt-and-sugar cured salmon, which is still delicious. Add a few crushed juniper berries directly to the cure or the pan to close most of the gap.

The Scandinavian botanical spirit, flavored with caraway and dill rather than juniper, and used in very similar dishes.

Best for

cured salmon and gravlax, pickled herring, potato dishes, cabbage, shellfish, cream sauces

Caraway and dill are unmistakable, so the dish shifts from piney to distinctly Nordic and slightly aniseed. In gravlax that is arguably the more traditional flavor. In a gin and tonic it is a completely different drink.

Worth naming because it is what most people actually reach for, with the understanding that the drink changes identity.

Best for

mixed drinks, highballs, punches, spritzes

A tonic made with blanco tequila is peppery and mineral, and one with white rum is softer and faintly sweet. Neither tastes remotely like a gin and tonic, whose entire character is juniper against quinine. In a Negroni, tequila works surprisingly well because the Campari and vermouth carry the drink; in a martini, nothing hides the swap.

The alcohol-free answer, and in cooking it covers more of the gap than you would expect, because juniper is most of what gin brings.

Best for

alcohol-free cooking, braised cabbage, sauerkraut, pork and game, marinades, cures

Crush the berries, add them with the other aromatics, and fish them out before serving if they are whole, since biting one is unpleasantly resinous. You lose the alcohol's ability to spread aroma through fat, so the pine reads more localised and less perfumed. Non-alcoholic gin alternatives, where available, substitute 1:1 and get closer still. Replace the liquid volume with stock or water so the pan does not run dry.