Comments on: Gin Botanical Profile: Juniper Berries

By: SummerFruitCup

SummerFruitCup — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:29:52 +0000

I like some strong Juniper and was fascinated to try Desert Juniper. I quite enjoyed it and some drink worked better than others. The best all-round minimal botanical gin i have found is Van Wees Three Corners (just juniper & citrus, lemon I think) very tasty.

By: Neil

Neil — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 19:31:47 +0000

Craig, it’s really interesting the more you find out about botanicals. Tasted Orris root on its own for the first time recently and that was remarkable.

Noodlefish, thanks that’s a long ripening period. And I didn’t go into the uber-geek area of terpenes!

By: Noodlefish

Noodlefish — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:33:53 +0000

Fascinating stuff (and love the new look). This week I learnt a few juniper-related facts:
– Sipsmith uses Bulgarian juniper
– Juniper berries take two to three years to ripen
– the terpenes in juniper have really cool names: alpha-pinene, β-myrcene, germacrene D and aplha-cadinol, for example.
Loads of geekery in there somewhere!

By: Craig Umpleby

Craig Umpleby — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 09:46:26 +0000

Nice post Neil, I was thinking of doing something similar, a botanical garden style page. I find it very interesting and important to look a little more in to the botanicals, in their natural form and how their essence expresses itself when distilled, Sacred Spirits single distillates are fantastic for this. Looking forward to the next post!

By: Neil

Neil — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 18:16:26 +0000

Hi Chrissy,
What about Chase didn’t you like, was it too overpowering, not junipery enough? It’s pretty strong at 48% and most people would find it having a long peppery/spicy finish which might be why you didn’t like it?

As with all gin, it depends on what you are looking for, and hopefully the more gins that we review, the more you can learn about what you might like, and might want to avoid!

By: chrissy aram

chrissy aram — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 17:15:06 +0000

I bought a bottle of Chase Farm Gin and was sadly dissapointed as it was not to my taste at all. I gave it to a friend who although she liked it didn’t really get that Gin taste from it. Anyone else commented on this?