Without juniper, there’s no gin. It’s the one continuous aspect of the spirit we love that makes up its heart and soul. So much so that it’s the law for something to be called ‘gin’ it has to have juniper as its predominant flavour (and have a minimum strength of 37.5% ABV).
Kinrara Distillery, based in the heart of the Cairngorms national park in Scotland, really want to make it the star of the show and not just a legal necessity or tick box exercise with their Estate Juniper Edition Wild Juniper gin. While most British gins feature juniper from places across continental Europe, Kinrara have only used juniper berries foraged from the picturesque area around the Aviemore distillery for this gin.
Providence is so important to product, and while Kinrara Distillery were already locally sourcing rosehips and rowan berries for their other gins, adding the juniper to that list is a big step given its huge role and front-of-stage appearance in the botanicals involved.
On the nose it’s fresh with pine, light citrus and vanilla notes, which continues when tasting neat with a very smooth, almost creamy mouthfeel followed by little peppery hits. I’ve been loving the juniper-forward flavours and waft of orange in a negroni, but it’s equally at home in a G&T.
I caught up with Jade from Kinrara Distillery to find out more…
With the Wild Juniper gin it really feels like a celebration of provenance and the brilliant range of botanicals the highlands have to offer. Why is that important for Kinrara Distillery?
When we started the business back in 2017, we really wanted to showcase the best that Scotland had to offer and tasked our Head Distiller David to create our Highland Dry gin using Rosehips and Rowanberries, both of which grow wild around the distillery. He still hand forages them every year and they are used in each and every distillation. When we then talked about creating a ‘Scottish’ Gin in 2020, we knew that we wanted to experiment with Scottish juniper, which can be notoriously difficult to work with due to the uncertainty of wild berries. Thankfully David managed to hand forage wild juniper from the hills behind the distillery and found that it worked well with our other Scottish botanicals. We also use wild Scottish heather in our Artist Edition ‘Freya’ gin, so the celebration and use of local, hand foraged botanicals is really at the heart of what we do here at Kinrara.
How do the local juniper berries from the Cairngorms differ from what many other British gins use that might come from abroad, for example Macedonia?
We’ve found that the Scottish juniper berries are much earthier in flavour than the Macedonian juniper and bring a completely different flavour profile to a gin. Our Highland Dry gin uses Macedonian juniper and is much more citrussy than our Wild Juniper gin, although the recipes are very similar.
The highland dry has picked up multiple awards, most recently I believe being the Best Scottish Contemporary Gin at the 2021 World Gin Awards. How do you think the wild juniper gin builds on that and offers something different?
Our Wild Juniper gin really is a celebration of local Scottish produce, with hand foraged juniper, rosehips and rowan berries all key botanicals. We are immensely proud of everything that we have achieved with all of our gins over the past 4 years, but our Wild Juniper is very special to us because of the local botanicals used. It’s also been very popular with our customers, many of who prefer it to our Highland Dry gin.
What’s your favourite cocktail to make with the wild juniper gin? I’ve been very much enjoying negronis with it, bringing out the beautiful orange notes and strong juniper forward profile.
I would say a Negroni is the perfect cocktail to use our wild juniper gin with! It really does bring out the citrus notes and highlights the earthy flavour of the juniper. It’s also wonderful in just a classic G&T, with lots of ice, quality tonic and a twist of orange peel.
Why is it important that we have International Scottish Gin Day and what other Scottish gins are your favourites?
The Scottish gin scene really is one of the best in the world, with hundreds of fantastic gins produced by passionate and talented teams. International Scottish Gin Day is so important to help highlight that to the people who maybe aren’t in the industry, along with helping smaller craft distilleries get their name out there. We really believe in supporting other small distilleries like ourselves, a few that we have great relationships with are the likes of Seven Crofts & Kirkjuvagr. Misty Isle is also a fantastic Scottish gin and one to try if you haven’t already.
What’s next for Kinrara Distillery?
We’ve just recently finished a complete refit of our tasting room and distillery shop, so look forward to welcoming our customers back to the distillery. We also have another couple of products coming just before Christmas, which we have been working on for a little while and are very excited about!
Thanks so much to Jade for her time to share more about Kinrara this International Scottish Gin Day.
Join me in celebrating International Scottish Gin Day on 2 October 2021 and read more about other Scottish gins.
If you want to learn more about juniper, the different variants, and its role in gin then I’d definitely check out this great article from Spirits Beacon.
I bought my bottle oh Kinrara Wild Juniper gin from The Gin Cooperative’s shop.