New Zealand may be a small country, but its gins are slowly but surely making their mark on a global scale.

While my wife and I were travelling around New Zealand, we were fortunate to meet Joerg Henkenhaf, distiller and founder of Broken Heart gin, at his home near Queenstown. Broken Heart’s story has been told many times, so it was great to chat to Joerg more about his gins and how he created them.

Since moving to New Zealand from Germany 16 years ago, Joerg’s curiosity has driven his exploration of the world of spirits. His background in winemaking and producing spirits with his father proved to be a brilliant starting point to master gin distillation.

For Joerg, distilling his perfect gin is all about balancing creativity and tradition. Being creative is something he’s hugely passionate about. It has seen him go from initially producing a London Dry gin, to a range that includes quince gin, a navy strength gin, and even vodka and rum. Joerg has not lost sight of tradition; he has signed up to support Hayman’s Gin’s campaign ‘Call Time on Fake Gin‘ to protect gin’s heritage of juniper-led flavour. He feels strongly that overly flavoured, sugared, and coloured spirits are not gin, and believes that traditional distilling shouldn’t be compromised during its surge in popularity.

Broken Heart broken down

Joerg’s passion for creation and development has driven his success. He’s an inventor but has stayed true to the award-winning formula from his London Dry. His recipe for the original Broken Heart gin is found within each flavour and style of gin that he creates.

While Joerg’s recipe for the London Dry was something he’d had in his head, it took 3 years to refine to get to the version we know and love today. He was focussed on was creating a gin that you could keep drinking all day (or all year) and not get bored of it, avoiding it being pigeonholed or limited by season; something to keep on your gin shelf year round.

New Zealand’s remoteness can make distilling gin difficult though, with many ingredients difficult to import due to price. However, he has made a point of importing Broken Heart’s base alcohol from South Africa for its purity, so he has a blank canvas on which to create his gins.

While we were chatting, we tried some of Broken Heart’s range including the rhubarb gin, quince gin, navy strength and spiced rum. The quince and rhubarb gins are delicious and quite tart neat but when you add tonic water, the flavours completely change and are lifted with the added sweetness of the tonic. The navy strength really caught my attention though. Created for bartenders, the ratio of the botanicals follows the Broken Heart London Dry but the quantities have been increased by 40% as the higher alcohol content (57% abv) can carry the flavour. This means it’s going to be great for cocktails as you don’t lose the intended flavour of the gin, so I’m definitely keen to try it in a negroni!

Ever the inventor, Joerg was quick to explain that not every spirit he distills is a success, but he continues to work on them until he has a drink that he loves, even if it’s not the one he originally set out to make. For instance, his dark rum was originally intended to be a white rum, but evolved during its creation.

Joerg is open to his ideas changing while he makes them, but everything he makes is to his tastes, and are things that he will enjoy drinking. He doesn’t pander to trends or try to jump on bandwagons; his authenticity guides his ideas. He meticulously researches each drink he’s decided to make beforehand so he can create the best spirits possible.

Junipalooza

It was great to chat about the popular gin event Junipalooza too, as that was where Broken Heart first caught our attention. We spoke about Broken Heart being part of the first event in Hamburg and how much he enjoyed it, to the trials of shipping stock to events on the other side of the world.

What’s next for Broken Heart? You’ll have to wait and see, but one thing you can know is that there’ll always be a new idea bubbling away.

Pick up a bottle of their delicious London Dry in the meantime from Gin Foundry or Master of Malt.

Stay tuned for more on our New Zealand adventures…