Hernö have released a new statement gin, the recipe for which uses just two botanical ingredients
Hernö’s latest release sounds punchy and delicious (I haven’t actually tried it yet), and the stuff of gin-purist dreams. Why do I say that? Well lets find out by speaking to Linus Morgan, creative leader at the Hernö Gin Bar in Stockholm, who was in London last week to do some training sessions:
BLUK: Hello Linus, thanks for giving us some of your time today. Tell us about Hernö’s new gin.
LM: So, within our portfolio we have two gins that we call ‘statement’ gins, where we go a little bit against the gin business where they are using gimmicks to sell their products.
Our first release in that section was the Pink BTL Gin, because a lot of brands started to make gins coloured pink and flavoured with ‘pink’ flavours to sell gin to people who don’t drink gin. For us, pink gin is a cocktail, not a gin, so we made a distilled gin with strawberries and rose petals added to our recipe, but we distilled it so it’s a dry gin and the only thing pink about it is the label, we printed it with “pink gin is a cocktail, this is not a cocktail. This is a no-bullshit gin”.
BLUK: I like rude words on labels, I’d buy that if I saw it. So the new gin has a similar story?
LM: The Botanical Flavoured Gin is the nest step in those statement gins, where people use buzzwords such as artisanal, super premium, et cetera. So we scaled it down and took gin to its pure essence and made a gin with only coriander seeds and juniper, bottled at 47% ABV. It’s also a statement against a Swedish monopoly who have made a new category within gin that’s ‘flavoured gin’, which is where pink gin is now sitting. So our Botanical Flavoured Gin is super-complex, has a lot of flavour. In my mind it’s one of the best Dry Martini gins I’ve ever tried, without being too biased.
BLUK: It sounds delicious. Aside from Martinis, how else would you recommend bartenders experiment with the Botanical Flavoured Gin?
LM: Any gin-forward cocktail. It makes a really good Gin Old Fashioned, because it holds its flavour against the dilution and sugar. Also in a Last Word or Tom Collins, anything that goes a little bit towards the herbal side, anything with absinthe, anything with Green Chartreuse. Negronis. It really holds its place.
If that whets your appetite for a big ol’ Dry Martini, and you’d like to try the new Hernö Botanical Flavoured Gin, you can enter the draw to win a bottle, courtesy of Love Drinks, by filling in the form below.