How JIN JIN Is Made: Six Months, 30+ Plants, No Shortcuts
If you have ever wondered how fermented drinks are made, the honest answer is: it depends on who is making them, and how much time they are willing to give it. Some are brewed in days. Some are flavoured to taste fermented without much fermentation happening at all. JIN JIN takes a different route, one that cannot be rushed, faked or scaled with shortcuts. This is what actually happens between the plants going in and the bottle arriving at your door.
It starts with more than 30 plants
Every batch of JIN JIN begins with a blend of over 30 plants: fruits, roots, herbs and botanicals chosen for what they bring to the ferment, not just how they taste on day one. That matters, because fermentation transforms ingredients. A plant that seems modest going in can contribute depth, acidity or umami six months later. The blend is built the way a perfumer builds a fragrance, with top notes, body and a long finish in mind.
This is also why JIN JIN does not taste like anything else on the shelf. The plummy, prune-like sweetness, the cola and balsamic notes, the whisper of sherry and that earthy, umami finish are not flavourings. They are what 30+ plants become when you give them time.
How are fermented drinks made the slow way?
Most commercial fermentation is measured in days or weeks. JIN JIN is fermented in small batches for over six months. During that time, naturally occurring microorganisms work through the plants, breaking down sugars and building an entirely new profile of flavour and character.
Six months is a long time to hold stock, tie up tanks and wait. It is also the point. A short ferment gives you fizz and a bit of tang. A long ferment gives you complexity: layered flavour that unfolds in the glass rather than hitting all at once. It is the difference between a young wine and one with age, or fresh cabbage and properly matured kimchi. Cultures that ferment well have always understood that time is an ingredient.
Small batches are not a marketing line either. Fermentation is a living process, and living processes need attention. Smaller volumes mean each batch can be tasted, monitored and judged ready when it is ready, not when the production schedule says so.
Raw, unpasteurised, and why that is a deliberate choice
Once fermentation is complete, most producers pasteurise. Heat treatment makes life easier: longer shelf life, simpler logistics, a product that behaves predictably in a warehouse. It also flattens the very thing long fermentation creates.
JIN JIN is raw and unpasteurised. Nothing is heated, nothing synthetic is added, and nothing is stripped out. What develops in the ferment stays in the bottle, including the enzymes and beneficial bacteria that make a living ferment a living ferment. It is the same logic behind choosing raw kimchi over the shelf-stable jar, or fresh miso over the pasteurised paste.
This is also why we ask you never to serve JIN JIN hot. Heat would undo six months of patient work in a matter of seconds. Cold water, sparkling water, tonic over ice: all perfect. A steaming mug: never.
From concentrate to your glass
JIN JIN is an enzymatic cordial, a fermented concentrate rather than a ready-to-drink bottle. Each 600ml bottle holds around 30 servings. You pour roughly 20ml, add water, sparkling water or tonic, and the drink is made fresh in the moment, by you.
There is a practical elegance to this. Concentrate means no shipping water around the country, no fridge full of single-serve bottles, and a serve that costs about £1.20 rather than the price of yet another canned alternative. But it also makes drinking JIN JIN a small act rather than a passive one. You measure, you pour, you stir, you taste. Ten seconds of ritual, which is often the part people come to love most.
The proof is in the tasting
We are naturally biased about all of this, so it helps that other people have weighed in. JIN JIN has earned three Great Taste Awards, an IWSC award and a World Alcohol-Free Award, and it is served in Michelin-level restaurants and stocked at Fortnum & Mason. Chefs and judges do not care how romantic your process sounds. They care what is in the glass.
What is in the glass is the result of a stubborn set of choices: more plants than necessary, more time than is commercially sensible, and no pasteurisation even though it would make everything easier. Six months, 30+ plants, no shortcuts. Once you taste the difference that time makes, the quicker stuff is hard to go back to.
Ready to taste six months of patience? Shop the bottle and pour your first serve this week.
