G&T with a twist: global takes on the classic British tipple
On World Gin Day, Joel Harrison and Neil Ridley celebrate the rise of new, international offerings
Gin: a spirit that feels as British as a cup of tea and a cucumber sandwich. A spirit so strongly linked with this green and pleasant land, that the term “London Dry” is used to endorse bottles made to a specific, high standard.
Much like the aforementioned tea and cucumber combo, however, where the former hails from China and the latter from India, the concept of gin was, of course, imported to the UK from the Netherlands in the 17th century. Such was its reception, that it quickly made itself at home, applied for a change of passport and settled in with a pipe, bowler hat and monocle, waving a Union flag and ordering high tea.
Today, we find ourselves at the forefront of a new gin revolution, with sales of Uk-produced gins doubling in the past five years, now totalling £2.2billion across domestic and export sales in 2018, showing just how steep the trajectory is for this humble spirit.
On World Gin Day, however, it is also worth recognising how well-travelled the spirit has become: we are on the cusp of a truly global gin boom,
evidenced by the near-60 countries covered in our latest book, The World Atlas of Gin (published by Mitchell Beazley in September), highlighting new craft gin distillers exploring indigenous botanicals, from Mexico’s Yucatán to Australia’s Tasmania.
Founded in 2016, the Cape Byron Distillery is located at the heart of the Brook family’s 96-acre farm in Byron Bay, hidden among the macadamia orchards and rainforest that they have regenerated. The distillery was purpose-built on one of the few bare plots remaining – inside is George, their custom-made 2,000-litre copper pot still, and the resulting gin is a true reflection of the local land and its natural resources. “We couldn’t help but draw on the rich local botanicals that grow wild in the rainforest region in Australia,” Eddie Brook notes.
“When my parents took over the derelict farm, the land was completely desolate. Regenerating the land has taken over two decades, but it provides us with some of the most interesting ingredients for our gin, such as aniseed myrtle and native ginger, all of which we hand-pick.”
On the other side of the world, it is no surprise to see a distillery in Finland using a spirit made from rye. The Finns consume six times more rye than the world average, and the idea was developed by the founders – while sitting in a sauna.
“We wanted to capture the Finnish summer in a gin by combining locally foraged birch leaves to bring the taste of sauna, where Finns spend half of the summer whacking themselves with birch twigs, and the distinct aroma of meadowsweet combined with acidity of cranberries and sea buckthorn to balance it all,” notes the head distiller, Kalle Valkonen.
With this trend for distillers to make their gin a distinct embodiment of their locality and terroir – scouring the landscape for unique and unusual botanicals, while controlling the process from field to glass – the result is not just about the intriguing spirit in the bottle, but the engaging tale of how it got there.