Distillery Botanica has partnered with the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney to craft a limited-edition Distillery Botanica Rather Royal Gin using botanicals grown in the Garden itself.
Botanicals from the Botanic Garden’s landmarks, such as the Rose Garden and Spring Walk, were chosen to create a rare collection of 1,000 handcrafted bottles of well-balanced gin which explores the essence of the Garden. Philip Moore, Distillery Botanica Master Distiller had worked with the Garden’s Director of Horticulture, Jimmy Turner, to choose the best botanicals for the gin including Pope John Paul roses, mandarin leaf, lemon verbena, horehound, curry leaves, lovage and chamomile on top of the base of juniper, orris root and murraya.
Moore spent months refining the gin through the thousand-year-old technique of enfleurage to cold-extract their perfumes, producing a highly-aromatic, drinkable equivalent of a visit to the Gardens. This is the same technique employed in the production of Garden Grown Gin.
Featured in the photo above are Joseph Henry Maiden (L) and Charles Moore (R), directors of the Garden from 1896-1923 and 1848-1896 respectively.
By drinking the Distillery Botanica Rather Royal Gin, you can be helping Garden’s conservation programs which will benefit from the proceeds of the sales. According to Kim Ellis, Executive Director of the Botanic Gardens & Centennial Parklands, “Here in Australia, 10 per cent of our native plant species are listed as endangered, with a number of threats to our unique plant life, including climate change, invasive pathogens and habitat destruction.”
Distillery Botanica Rather Royal Gin Tasting Notes
- Country of Origin: Australia
- ABV: 42%
- Colour: clear and viscous
- Nose: fresh herbaceous notes are followed by soft floral aromas, like the scent of a garden in the rain
- Palate: starts fresh and juniper forward and progresses to warm culinary spice then slowly fades into lingering floral notes, mainly of rose and chamomile
- Comments: this a gin that is begging for a Martini. Distiller Philip Moore recommends it with a rinse of Noilly Prat vermouth and a lemon twist. In a G&T, go easy on the tonic and choose a tonic that doesn’t overpower the elegant nuances of the gin.
This article was originally published on March 23, 2017 on our sister website Gourmantic.
