There are heaps of mainstream and hand-made gins in the market and they are all different. Some of them may have only 4 botanicals in the recipe some of them may have 10 times more ingredients than those with 4. What is the golden ration when we are talking about gin? I would say it is closer to the first figure, closer to 4 rather than to 40.
Meet Roots Marlborough Dry Gin from one of the most recognisable wine regions of New Zealand.
6 core botanicals are used to create the gin . One out of those, the juniper is the only one sourced from Macedonia and the rest were hand harvested in New Zealand.
47 (!) is the number of ingredients or botanicals, which is more correct, that may be used to make a gin too. I'm not going to mention the particular brand. I bet there are gins with higher numbers of botanicals used to create a wow effect for marketing purposes.
Is it alright when you experience endless spectre of tones and tastes in a single product? Depends.
I would not try something that complicated more than once because I won't be able to identify each of those ingredients individually any way.
Also, such beverages become a nightmare for bartenders as they can't achieve the desired profile of their cocktails.
In this case, I would rather go for a less overloaded gin but with a better balanced recipe that is generous to your nose and does not make mess on you palate.
Let's get back to today's hero. Roots Marlborough Dry Gin is a small batch hand crafted gin distilled with use of New Zealand famous whey spirit. You may know it from Broken Shed vodka and which is well known for containing no methanol compared to the grain one. It is also free from gluten.
The botanicals are macerated in the whey spirit for 24 hours and than distilled in a 200 litre bespoke made distillery with no filtration afterwards. So you could notice your gin go slightly cloudy if left on ice for long periods or store your bottle in the fridge, this is because of the level of aromatic oils retaining in the gin.
