The Botanist Gin

With the Islay botanicals there’s amazing potency and the flavours have been coaxed from the plants in the right way. ” Adam Hannett, Head Distiller at Bruichladdich Distillery has been intimately involved in every distillation of The Botanist Islay Dry Gin since the inaugural run in 2010. If you give yourself a bit of time with The Botanist, you allow it to open up, kind of hold it in your hand, warm it up slightly, you really start on the nose, to pick up certain botanicals. Due to regulations in your own country of residence, you cannot access this website By entering you accept the use of cookies to enhance your user experience and collect information on the use of the website.

It takes James 7 months every year to personally pick the ingredients for The Botanist, leaf by leaf, flower by flower, when each plant is in its prime. After taking a BSc in Botanical Sciences at university, James’s strong rapport with people and a love of the outdoors took him from there into tourism, and it was visiting Scotch distilleries that originally led him to Islay. After a year living and working on the island, there was an advert in the local newspaper that brought his earlier love for plants together with his later experience of distilleries. Due to regulations in your own country of residence, you cannot access this website By entering you accept the use of cookies to enhance your user experience and collect information on the use of the website.

But look closer and you’ll find fertile soil, crystal clear spring water and, if you know where to look, 22 fragrant botanicals that are perfect for making gin. Our approach to spirits distillation began back in 1881, when brothers William, John and Robert Harvey constructed an avant-garde whisky distillery on the shores of Lochindaal, Islay. Those wild ingredients are collected by In-House Forager James Donaldson, and distilled by Head Distiller Adam Hannett at one of the only distilleries in the world to be B Corp certified. Due to regulations in your own country of residence, you cannot access this website By entering you accept the use of cookies to enhance your user experience and collect information on the use of the website.

The most pungent of my dried jars comes from plants that have been salted before they were dehydrated; one twist of a lid of salted leaves and you might be hit by onion, garlic mustard or seaweedy aromas; even more aromatic than the original plant, somehow more deeply scented, and flavoured. The resulting dried herbs have robust flavours and are perfect for using as seasonings in any savoury dish you would season with salt – crumbled salted nettles are lovely with toasted sesame seeds sprinkled onto breads or dips like humous, salted yarrow is incredible dusted on thin slices of tomatos; salted herbs are bombs of umami flavour and make the simplest of food explode with flavour. Wild herbs and flowers that are ideal candidates for salting are: Nettles, yarrow, cleavers, dead nettles, wild oregano, wild thyme, wild garlic, 3 cornered leek, ground elder, ground ivy, lady’s smock, bittercress, ox eye daisy, garlic mustard (hedge garlic), honesty, spruce tips, cherry blossom, apple blossom, rose petal and honeysuckle. Alongside the jars of the magical 5th taste, you’ll be left with a flavoured brine water; don’t throw this away as you can use it to soak meat, fish or vegetables – which pull the wild flavours into your food; or dilute it down to cook pulses or beans in.