GIN’S RENAISSANCE

How the Industry Has Been Given a Good Shake-Up

How do you like your gin? Traditionally dry, with full-bodied juniper made in the good old English style? How about with lashings of punchy floral and fruity notes for a modern twist? Perhaps, like many drinkers, you don’t like gin at all. At least, you think you don’t.

Despite being one of the world’s oldest drinks with a storied history, gin had faded in popularity and lost ground to alternatives like vodka, Jägermeister, tequila and rum which are poured, splashed and tossed into mixed drinks and served by the bucket-load at the clubs, pubs and eateries around South Africa.

But if the modern hipster wants anything, it’s the ability to start new trends, and gin has enjoyed an overwhelming resurgence in the last five years, with the Mother City leading the charge.

Take Pienaar and Son, a small distillery off Roeland Street in the heart of Cape Town’s CBD. Its chief distiller is Andre Pienaar, a twenty-something musicianturned-chemist who fronted the indie band Ashtray Electric. Now he’s producing fresh, beautiful spirits, and with his finger on the pulse of the nightlife scene, he’s just the right person to erode the image that gin is as an antiquated drink reserved for the stodgy and the British.

Gin’s history goes a long way to explaining why it is seen through a narrow lens. The spirit first emerged in 10th century Italy, yet it was in France and Belgium where it was commonly consumed under the name “genever”. During Britain’s fight against France on Dutch soil, British soldiers discovered the drink and drank it for courage – coining the term “Dutch courage” in the process.

Enamoured with their find, the soldiers took genever back to England and christened it “gin”, but that love of the bitter juniper berry spiralled out of control when the government allowed unlicensed

distillers to sell badly-made concoctions. Soon, great swathes of the population were getting killed from drinking cheap offshoots.

Licensing laws were duly tightened towards the end of the century and in 1769, the definitive gin-making authority was born: Gordon’s, a brand that single-handedly gave the market a professional front that has endured in the centuries since.

Yet if your idea of gin is a drink that’s dry and bitter and frankly hard to stomach, you’ve limited your palate to a very small cross-section of the market.

“In reality, gin is a lot more versatile than other spirits,” Andre tells me from his distillery, where neatly ordered silver barrels and gleaming pipes work quietly in the background. “There are almost an endless number of flavour combinations you can play with to produce a drink that tastes nothing like the bitter spirit you’re thinking of.” Take one of his bottled gins, Orient, which is spliced with spices and fruit that pay homage to the Eastern spice trade that influenced Cape Town culture and cuisine. It’s a world away from the gin and tonics mom and dad enjoyed.

It turns out that gin is almost entirely open to experimentation and only needs a predominant taste of juniper (a “seed cone” produced by the juniper family of plants) and an alcohol content of 43 % in South Africa to be considered “gin”.

Bold new flavour combinations have begun to invigorate the palates of young drinkers, reinvigorating gin’s image.

Hip spots like the Gin Bar on Wale Street, a few kilometres from the Pienaar and Son distillery, are helping to bring gin up to date. Since opening its doors in 2015 right behind the Honest Chocolate café, the Gin Bar has sought out the most diverse selection of flavours imaginable.

“I’ll often meet people who tell me they don’t like gin,” Angelique Smith, manager of the bar, tells me. “And I’ll say: ‘Stop, I’ll change your mind – there is always something new to try.’ ”

The Gin Bar is famous for infusing its drinks with South African botanicals – like fynbos – or concocting worldwide favourites, like the Negroni, which combines gin with Campari liquer and vermouth rosso, topped off with an orange peel.

Angelique notes that people like the idea of small-scale providers who offer an intimate experience. Andre agrees. Artisanal businesses are growing in popularity in a day and age where advertising follows us

everywhere we go. In the end, people tend to shun big companies and look local, safe in the knowledge they’re getting something genuine.

Modern distillation equipment also means that it’s easier for independent businesses like Pienaar and Son to get going. The hard part is changing the perception that you need to have been selling gin for 300 years to make a good product. “Distilleries have come a long way,” Andre tells me, “and new technology allows us to make a better product – a fresh, new, interesting product.”

Words like “age-old”, “trusted”, “antique” and “heritage” are regularly used to sell alcohol, but they’re the work of copywriters in an advertising boardroom. Take the common phrase “triple distilled”. It’s designed to make you think of heritage, but the truth is that new technology has meant that the spirit is distilled once – perfectly.

So long as there’s demand, Andre says he will keep experimenting with flavour combinations and having fun. With a hip new clientele, the face of gin today is very different indeed.