Botanicals. Are you bored with that word yet? You shouldn’t be. They should still be to your taste. There are plenty of them about that you may not have tried in your gin. Just like every juniper berry. For instance, how about botanicals such as Diddle-dee, Scurvy Grass, and Fachin, which go into gins totally unique to the Falkland Islands and its Tumbledown Distillery, which is believed to be the most southerly distillery in the world?
Tumbledown Gin – handcrafted in the British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic, uses wild-foraged, indigenous botanicals. Founder Taff Davis, a Falklands War veteran and former Royal Marine, persuaded the Royal Fleet Auxiliary supply ship to transport his small batch of gins to the British Isles. And beyond!
As well as seemingly every city in the world, virtually every island has its own gin. From Hawaii Fid Street) to the Azores (Ghosts of the Sea), Corfu (Lazaris Distillery’s Merlin), Malta (Islands8), Ibiza (LAW), Gibraltar (Spirit of the Rock’s Candytuft and Campion) and Cyprus (Aristides Distillery’s Aoratus) to Greenland (Isfjord), Tasmania (Hobart’s Forty Spotted, Hellfire Bluff, Lark and Lawrenny), Fiji (Blue Turtle), and St Helena where another Welshman, Paul Hickley, makes Jamestown Gin.
No Napoleon Gin. Yet. But Elba has its own gin brand (Helba).
Peddlers Gin was the first Chinese craft distillery. Shanghai’s Porcelain Gin is made with Mongolian juniper berries. Japan has many gins such as Roku and Etzu. And plenty of sakura cherry blossoms to infuse them.
Make yourself a Geisha :
- Etsu The Original | 45ML
- Green Tea Geisha | 20ML
- Lychee Syrup | 15ML
- Lime Juice | 22.5 ML
- Egg White | 20ML
Shake and pour.
Indulge your wanderlust by tasting gins from every nook and cranny in the world. From landlocked Hungary (Malamo) to Alasa (Forty Fathoms).
From North Dakota (Minions), Montana (Fallen Dove), and Idaho (Farmer’s) down to Arizona (Suncliffe), Texas (Waterloo), and Louisiana (Gentilly Gin with ingredients from the Cajun medicine bag!) Alabama (Dread River and Emerald Distilling henny Wesley’s Gin) and Florida (St Augustine New World Gin and Old St. Pete Tropical).
And don’t rule out the Caribbean as a gin-free zone.
Try a Ride the Surf cocktail with Jim Jardine and Aaron Salyer’s Blue Light Ocean Gin.
- 1 unit blue light ocean gin
- 1 unit blue curacao
- 3/4 unit of falernum syrup
- 1 unit of lemon juice
- 5 units of bitter lemon
- Some lemon zest or a slice of lemon
- Ice cubes
Set aside a year to explore South America’s flora through its gins. Start with Michael Kurlya’s Don Michael Distillery Peruvian Andes Gin.
Kurlya was born and raised in Miami, graduating from Tulane University in 1997 as a mechanical engineer and finishing an MBA at the University of Miami in 2007.
The Middle East isn’t dry.
Damascus Gin was launched in 2024 by founders Joelle Antaky, Joseph Abi Ghanem, and Andres Gonzalez, with a shared aim to show the beauty, resilience, and creativity of Lebanon and Syria. Produced at Chateau Bybline at Wata El Joz, the botanical focus is on the Damascus Rose alongside Syrian juniper, Lebanese citrus, pistachios from Aleppo, and local mountain spring water.
Israel has M&H’s Levantine Gin, India has countless gins, and Sri Lanka, Rockland. The options for new discoveries never run out.
With its marula, rooibos, baobab trees, and wild fynbos. Africa offers Blind Tigger, Inveroche, Cape Town Gin, Kenyan Procera Gin, and North African Marakkesh Gin, as well as Ugandan Warnagui and Botswanian Forager.
If you prefer your juniper berries to be Balkan, then try Hum 587 made on Croatia’s Vis island. The country is also well known for its Old Pilot’s Gin. Serbia has Pharaoh’s Treasure and Georgia Mamola. All using indigenous herbs and “innovative” botanicals.
If you want to go Balkans, Estonia has Tarvo Jaansoo’s Junimperium, Lithuanian Vilnius Gin, and Latvian Obdo. You haven’t lived until you’ve had an Obdojito.
Even Luxembourg has its own gin. Originally from Bastogne, Belgium, Inès Fortemps de Loneux discovered gin in Spain. Leaving a career in finance, in 2022, she founded the Distillerie Fortemps de Loneux in Differdange.
The foraging never ends. The macerating never stops.
Botanicals are infinite. It’s quite tasteless to think otherwise.
Gin never bores.
