Cask and Still Magazine | 77 WORTH A LOOK


he scent of juniper. For me it will always be a reminder of my Italian grandfather’s house in west Florida and the garden he planted to remind himself of home. Like many of thee man optimists who have moved there over the years, he found the land unsuitable and the climate far too hot. But Pop-pop dug up the spiky scrubby grass and planted his dream garden anyway.


d unsuitable and It wasn’t a success. The olive trees didn’t


survive in the wet soil, the fi g had to be chopped down because it attracted too many aggressive birds. But the juniper? It was sprawling and glorious, exotic to me, its branching scaly leaves spreading like lace. I would roll the dust-bloomed berries in my fi ngers and crush them. The aroma was unlike anything else that grew there: not fruity, not fl oral. Mysterious and intoxicating. As I grew older, I sought a different kind of intoxication than the simple smell of berries. The literal kind, supplied by juniper-fl avoured spirit in gin fi zz and Martinis. At fi rst it’s simply about getting sideways – but then you discover, actually, that there is enormous complexity, even in those seemingly simple drinks.


eading lik y simp


Because gin is not just a one-trick pony. It contains multitudes. The more I sampled, the more I found to my delight that gin is so much more than an accompaniment to tonic (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It can be sipped as well as mixed, with a nod to its continental origins and the tiny glasses of jenever still produced according to medieval recipes in Amsterdam and Ghent. The character of gins there tell tales of long-ago mercantilism, of trades with foreign lands. Where I live now, many miles from Florida on the west coast of Scotland, gin has been enjoying a renaissance.


of trades with


Florida on has been en


Scotland’s gins tell a modern story, but an equally important one, of people reconnecting with the bounty offered by their own land.


of people ecting with the bounty


To be a spirits lover living in Scotland is to have the best


of every possible world. Not only the world-class whiskies – the rich drams on which a drinks and tourist industry are built – but also the young and vigorous gin makers here, whose creative use of local botanicals has inspired a movement of clever distillers and even cleverer drinkers. The ones who enjoy a gin, not simply to savour the alcohol buzz, but who also get a buzz from the complex taste. Not only Scotland, but elsewhere in Britain,


the gin revolution is growing louder. Last year, I stayed at Martin Miller’s house near Hay-on-Wye in Wales. It’s a chaotically-decorated B&B stuffed with antiques, oddities, and art, where Miller holds court over cocktail hour and a sumptuous dinner every night. The gin he serves – his own, of course – is an exercise in perfect restraint, in impeccable sourcing and balancing of fl avour. At home, there is no one favourite gin


– Pickering’s, The Botanist, Darnley’s View, Blackwoods and others jostle in our cupboard. Not to mention our own homemade spirit – an infusion of juniper, coriander and bay leaf that tastes more like an oude jenever or an old Tom- style of gin, for contrast. Sometimes we serve it in the jenever style, with a lump of sugar. It feels as naughty as the spoonful fi lched from Pop- pop’s sugar jar when I was a child. There is a gin for every mood. It’s a wisdom


whisky drinkers have long appreciated, and one which people are fi nally starting to recognise as also true of gin. I like to take that fi rst sip on its own, unaltered by mixers, ice or water, to ground myself and to get a sense of its fl avour. Each gin has its own personality and needs. Not all cocktails are suitable for all gins. I use a set of pink and gold- scrolled 1950s sherry glasses for sipping, ones left to me by an auntie from Huddersfi eld. She never knew my Italian grandfather, but they are the same kind of glasses Pop-pop would have used. Somewhere in all of us is the memory


of being a little child running in a beloved grandfather’s garden. The juniper of gin is a solo instrument in a concert of fl avours and speaks to my memory of sunny climates and the hot haze of a spiky, grassy garden by the sea.


ROCK ROSE Dunnet Bay


This very northerly gin features an alluring botanical selection, including locally harvested Rhodiola Rosea and rowan berries. rockrosegin.co.uk


PICKERING’S Summerhall


Pickering’s Gin is distilled in Edinburgh using a recipe found on a piece of paper, written in 1947, and kept as a family secret.


pickeringsgin.com


THE BOTANIST Bruichladdich


This artisanal gin augments the classic gin aromatics with 22 local botanicals, hand-picked on the Hebridean island of Islay. bruichladdich.com


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