Kicking up the gin game
Popular, easy-to-make spirit experiencing a creative explosion of flavour and colour
There was a time when you could depend on gin for its few basics — a clear spirit with the taste of juniper, and a little citrus to back it up. Not anymore. These days, gin comes in various hues with a variety of subtle botanical flavours.
This spring alone, pink, purple and bright yellow gins distilled with honey, hibiscus, sugar kelp (brown algae) and even frankincense and myrrh are mus- cling in on the traditional gin market.
Some fix the start of this trend on Scotland’s Hendrick’s Gin, one of the first to lighten up on the juniper in an attempt to appeal to a wider range of people — those who thought they didn’t like gin.
One reason we’ve seen a recent creative explosion of flavours is that gin is really easy to make.
Craft breweries, which propelled the indie beer craze that is also based on breaking with tradition and experimenting with unusual flavours, are experimenting with gin. It’s almost a natural progression. And there is an audience for it. Vincent Pollard, a bartender at Toronto’s Bar Raval, recently returned from a two-month internship at the Turicum distillery in Zurich, Switzerland — a country known for its exciting craft distillation scene.
He notes that there’s no end of new wacky gins, some of which are more successful than others.
Pollard focuses on London Dry gin. During his two-month stint in Switzerland, he learned the process of making London Dry-style gin from the ground up.
That style is a departure from the original proto-gin, genever, a juniper-infused distilled malt wine that was used as medicine in 16th- and 17th-century Holland.
Generally considered the forerunner to modern gin, genever is typically barrel-aged, giving it a little straw colour, sweetness and a light, ripe fruit flavour.
Once it arrived in England, it evolved into a few styles: Old Tom, London and Plymouth.
The first, Old Tom, is closer to the original genever, in that it’s sweeter and also barrel-aged. Although once the most popular gin, Old Tom fell out of favour as clear, colourless Plymouth and London styles gained followers.
The difference between the latter two is subtle.
Plymouth is a geographical distinction and the flavour profile is slightly earthier.
“American-style gins” also called “Western-style” gins, which tend to minimize juniper, are the most recent upstart. There are thousands of new experimental versions at craft distilleries across North America.
“Gin is probably the easiest spirit to make (other than vodka) because you’re basically just taking neutral grain alcohol, adding botanicals and redistilling it,” Pollard says. “With gin, it’s easy to add some tasty botanical like, say, hibiscus, and people who like hibiscus will want to try it or, you know, buy it to take to the party.”
The new “American gins” are wide-ranging in flavour with wild botanicals — the main unifying factor is toning down the sharp juniper flavour.
One of the new craft gins coming to the LCBO this spring is Gin Hibiscus made by Montreal’s Oshlag Brasserie and Distillerie, ($41.95) a light pink, aromatic and floral gin that manages to pack some pretty substantial spicy heat.
If floral isn’t your fancy, the same producer has released an alternative, due at the LCBO later this month, too. Holy Smoke! ($42.95), is a slightly perfumey spirit that balances citrus with spicy juniper and winds up with a light, smoky, frankincense finish.
If you prefer a honey sweetness, another brewery, Oakville’s Trafalgar Ales and Meads, is getting into the esoteric gin game with its Ontario Wild Honey Botanical gin ($42.95; 538967), a light, sweet and citrusy spirit with the lightest whisper of juniper — probably not enough to make a hardened London Dry lover happy, since they’d certainly miss the punchy juniper, but, perhaps enough for a vodka fan who prefers a less bold-tasting spirit.
It’s a move away from juniper, but that’s not at all unusual for botanical-forward “Westernstyle” gins, Pollard notes.
“There’s a divide between the Western-style gins, which tend to be citrus-forward, and the London Dry style you’d get if you were drinking a Gordon’s or Beefeater, where all the high notes are juniper and the bass notes are citrus,” he says.
“And, of course, the Westernstyle gins also often have all those weird botanicals.”
Sometimes those weird botanicals work perfectly well. The brown algae in U.K.-made Isle of Harris gin ($86.35; 516617) is an aromatic complex medley of botanicals so well integrated that it can be challenging to pick out individual flavour notes.
Even though it’s the most expensive gin in memory in Ontario, it sold out in fewer than 90 days (more is on the way).
That integration, standard with the best botanical-forward gins, is the key to their success, Pollard says.
However, he cautions that there are quite a few less successfully integrated flavours on the market.
He recalls a pine gin from Sussex, England (his actual hometown) he recently tasted when visiting his family. He found it to have the profile of a cleaning product. “For me, with gin, it’s all about balance,” Pollard says. “There are a lot of craft beers out there that are interesting but just aren’t any good. Or when the person making your cocktail explains how they infused it with ‘x’ and it’s like, ‘Well, you shouldn’t have.’ Almost anything could work in a drink, but whether it’s a beer, a cocktail or a gin or a craft beer, it needs proper balance.”
Some gins have gone too far. The distiller of the pine gin from Sussex, for example, might have needed an “editor” to dial back the nettles or figure out how to punch it back with another botanical that would offset the overwhelming pine. As Pollard points out, there’s no shortage of new gins in Canada, too, that fail at subtle, balanced integration.
Presumably, in time, many will improve as novice distillers negotiate the learning curve.
The new world of gin is a bit of a mixed bag — and half the fun of that is in trying new ones to see which work for your palate and which ones don’t.
If you want to play it safe, best stick to a basic good-quality, traditional London Dry. Roundup of Gins with Unusual Botanicals
Gin Hibiscus. Coming soon to the LCBO, this spirit is surprisingly spicy and a great way to add a dash of colour to a G & T, $41.95. Isle of Harris Gin. Delicate, aromatic and nicely blended, it would be a waste to drink this gin in anything other than a cold martini. $86.35.
Holy Smoke! Thanks to the frankincense and myrrh, there’s a hint of smoky incense in this bold and novel gin, which will get a listing on the e-commerce section of the LCBO later this month, $42.95.
Ontario Wild Honey Botanical Gin. Significantly sweeter and less punchy than a traditional gin, this offering is probably more likely to appeal to a vodka drinker. $42.95.
Piger Henricus. This earthytasting parsnip gin from Quebec isn’t new but deserves mention, since it makes one of the all-time best G & Ts, $44.75.
Ungava. Made with wild rose hips and botanicals foraged on the Ungava Peninsula in Quebec, this aromatic, bright yellow gin shines when mixed with fresh grapefruit juice, $34.95.
Beefeater. Vincent Pollard points out that this classic London Dry Gin is a tried-and-true balance of juniper and citrus that is often overlooked, $28.