Sacred Gin is distilled at reduced temperatures in London by Ian Hart, a former Wall Street arbitrage trader. Mr. Hart separately distills each botanical ingredient infused in alcohol at between 100 and 125 degrees, and then blends these distillates to make the finished gin. Mr. Hart also cold distills white wines to make eaux de vie, and is experimenting with what he calls “bouquet transplants” on wines, distilling the aroma of a Sauternes and then adding it to a dry chardonnay.

In Lewisville, Tex., a suburb of Dallas, Carlos Guillem operates what he claims to be the only vacuum distillery in the United States. He started production and local distribution of DeLos vodka last summer.

Experimentally minded chefs and bartenders are also discovering the potential of vacuum distillation using laboratory devices called rotary evaporators, which fit on a kitchen cart and handle a few quarts of liquid at a time. They cost between $5,000 and $10,000.

The pioneers in kitchen distillation are the Spanish chefs Joan and Jordi Roca of El Celler de Can Roca in Girona. Joan Roca rocked the food world in 2005 when he served an oyster in a clear jelly flavored with an aroma that he had distilled from a handful of forest soil.

Tony Conigliaro is a bartender who bought a rotary evaporator that same year. He’s now the proprietor of 69 Colebrooke Row, a celebrated new London bar whose upstairs laboratory has already become a mecca for drinks professionals. Mr. Conigliaro adds botanicals to some gin or vodka, and then re-distills the combination to “make a spirit more specific to the drink we’re creating.” He has been especially happy with a blackcurrant vodka and a gin flavored with silver-needle tea.

He also macerates spices and fruits in neutral alcohol to extract their flavor, and then removes the alcohol with the rotary evaporator to make low-alcohol bitters. His “dry essence” is a highly astringent concentrate of crushed grapeseeds, 5 drops of which go into the vermouth for 70 servings of his very dry martini.