An American craft distillery St. George Spirits, based in California, are about to release three new gins their Terroir Gin, Botanivore Gin, and Dry Rye Gin (all 45%)
For their first gin they wanted to make it place-driven and as such St. George Terroir Gin, has been inspired by the aromas of California’s Mount Tam. The tasting notes mention an intense woodsy nose and flavour which are due to the inclusion of Douglas fir, California bay laurel, and California coastal sage as botanicals.
What drew me into making gin was the idea of exploring terroir through spirits,” says Winters, who personally foraged for some of the botanicals used in Terroir Gin, guided by wildcrafter Hall Newbegin of Juniper Ridge. “I’m in love with the way certain places smell, where the aromas make you want to shut your eyes and breathe in deep. On Mount Tam, the smell of the fir trees, the bay laurel, the sage, even the dusty ground all accumulate to build up this olfactory picture. I wanted to grab those aromas and find a way to capture them.
After the creation of Terroir Gin, two more gins were developed:
Botanivore Gin: This has 19 different botanicals, and was made with the intention of distilling a selection of traditional and less-than-traditional gin botanicals into one spirit and have them all balance out.
Dry Rye Gin, gets its name and its piquant, malty character from a base of 100% pot-distilled rye. This gin contains just five botanicals, all chosen to enhance the juniper berries.
I’m liking the approach that St George are taking especially when it’s coming to collecting botanicals as they appear to be foraging as many as possible from their surroundings (though of course some botanicals just cannot be got locally!)
I look forward to trying some of the gins when they get released, and I’ll update the post with my thoughts.
I picked up a small bottle of the Terroir and the Botanivore and these are two terrible gins. Terroir has cool marketing but the taste is very weak, there’s nothing to it. It does have a good story and smells nice but it makes a mediocre martini. Botanivore is not a real gin, it’s even more out there than Bombay Sapphire.
I want to like it because Hangar One is a local company and the flavored vodkas are a very good rendition of a spirit I don’t really care for. But definitely I recommend giving these a pass or at the least just getting a 200mL bottle.