Wherever you are, try the Gin

Sampling the quintessentially British spirit is an unexpectedly wonderful way to explore global destinations, from Vietnam to the Italian Riviera.

by Kate Dingwall

I’m in a small kayak, floating over sea kelp that dances as the waves wash in and out onto a beach just north of Los Angeles. While the kelp is unpleasantly slithery and slick right now—I’m avoiding touching it as I pull it onto my boat with my paddle—it’s going to end up somewhere much more appealing this evening: in my drink.

Kelp is one of the key ingredients of Gray Whale Gin. It’s a new-school American gin that looks locally to source its botanicals (the natural ingredients that give gin its distinctive herbal flavors), highlighting things like juniper grown in Big Sur, almonds from farther in the coast and, of course, the kelp on my boat.

Kelp is a key gin ingredient

As the adage goes, when you’re abroad, eat as the locals do. Maybe that’s dragging fresh bread through a shimmering pool of Portuguese olive oil or slurping pho on a plastic chair on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. But there’s another way to explore a destination: through the gin. Making gin is similar to cooking. You start with a cast of ingredients—in gin’s case, that’s herbs, fruits and spices—then pull it all together through chopping, boiling, roasting or distilling to make one singular dish or spirit. And what I learned on my travels to gin-producing cities around the world is that these base ingredients can change to match their surroundings. I tasted the beachy cool of California gins, calling for ingredients like kelp and almond. I sipped Vietnamese gins built off magnolia flowers and pomelo pulled from the forest canopy. I experienced Italian gins, which embody the dolce vita—sun-kissed and suave. These gins are transportive and terroir driven, able to conjure up a picture, scent and taste in a single glass.

It's October in Portofino, a fishing village on the Italian Riviera coastline, southeast of Genoa city, and I almost have the town to myself. Many tourists fear the shoulder season’s colder nights, but during the day, it’s still sun-soaked and extremely enjoyable. I’m surprised that it’s warm enough to swim— we arrive early to a lunch reservation, and the hot fall heat prompts us to spend the half hour cooling off in the grotto by the restaurant as a way to prepare ourselves for heaping plates of pasta, quickly fried shrimp and candyhued spritzes. As I swim back to shore, I screech as I feel something slimy slink across my foot. It’s a bright purple octopus, startled, as I am the first person that day to disturb its slumber.

Portofino's famous pastel-colored homes

That’s part of the beauty of Portofino in the off-season. The town, stacked high on a seaside cliff with colored shades of yellow and pink, is quiet, save for a few locals and some celebrity yachts parked half a mile off the shore. Every scent and every sight feels solely my own.

Later that day, I’m walking high above the Italian Riviera in a botanical garden owned by Portofino Dry Gin. Here, they grow all of their own botanicals for their gin, including rosemary, lavender, marjoram, iris and rose— smells that seem to float in on an ocean breeze. The distillers could source the same standard botanicals used in most well-known British gins, but what’s the point? The scents and flavors of this town are special, so they’re trying to capture a bit of the magic.

Sip a local spirit at Portofino's yacht-lined habor

After that day, I get it. No number of photos could perfectly capture my experience: the smell of the olive trees planted along the shore, the bergamot in the wind and the salt air sticking to my hair. A bottle of Portofino Dry Gin manages to capture just a little bit of the Italian Riviera, helping me daydream through a drink when I return home.

But wait—isn’t gin a British drink? What place does it have in California or Italy?

While most distilleries are based in the United Kingdom, the juniper-based beverage actually dates way back to ancient Egypt. In 1550 BCE, Egyptians used juniper water as a medicine. In 1055, Benedictine monks in Salerno, Italy, made tonic wine infused with juniper berries to cure ailments. Nearly three centuries later, a Belgian medical author noted that juniper berries cooked in wine could cure a host of different illnesses. In the 13th century, physician Arnaud de Villanova developed the European practice of spirits-making by distilling wine with juniper berries.

Juniper berries, a key gin ingredient

It was the Dutch who finalized the formula for gin. Sailors started making grainy malt wine more palatable by adding juniper to it. The British got wind of this practice, refined it, and gin evolved into the prominent white spirit we know today.

Gin’s history runs deep, though its present-day footprint is wider-reaching, with new gin distilleries around the world redefining local spirits.

Using Gin as a way to learn about places all over the world is only possible thanks to what Daniel Nguyen, founder of Vietnam’s Sông Cái Distillery, calls “a growing contemporary gin movement that highlights local terroir and ingredients.”

Vietnamese farmers harvest crops to make gin

Nguyen’s gins highlight distinctly Southeast Asian ingredients like juniper, plus citrus-like heirloom pomelo and the tiny orange berry of the Clausena, licorice and ficus root, spices of cassia bark and Mac Khen pepper (Ma ˘ ´ c Khén), and the silken white leaves of the Magnolia alba flower—all plants that make up the verdant greenery of the Vietnamese jungle. “All of these botanicals are native or heirloom to Vietnam, and many are traditionally used by local communities for food, medicine, tinctures and herbal liqueurs,” says Nguyen.

Sông Cái gin labels feature the ancient Hàng Trông style of painting done by Lê Đình Nghiên, one of the last remaining craftsmen of the style. “We try to highlight many aspects of Vietnamese cultures and people, from our farmers to the local mixologists we work with,” Nguyen says.

Raising a glass of Sông Cái to your lips can transport you to northern Vietnam’s rippling mountain topography, cascading rice terraces and always-blue waters of places like Ha Long Bay. And because of the Vietnamese flavors in each bottle, the floral notes of honeyed citrus and spice in his gins pair perfectly with local dishes, whether that’s crispy pork banh mi, fried prawn cakes or warming pho. The gin shines equally well in cocktails. At Stir, a cozy bar off the Ben Thanh Market in Ho Chi Minh City, gin is shaken or stirred into fresh highballs and fizzy sparkling cocktails in whisper-thin flutes, and poured over hand-cut ice cubes.

Back in California, Gray Whale Gin’s botanical blend is modeled after the migratory path of the Gray Whale, the same route the whales have been taking for more than 30 million years. The founders, Jan and Marsh Mokhtari, got the idea for the gin on a camping trip to Big Sur. As they sat on a cliffside under redwood trees looking out over the California coastline, they saw a mother whale breaching the water, followed closely by her baby as they headed up the coast. Their gin was born to capture that exact moment in time.

The founder of Gray Whale Gin in their California distillery

As such, the list of ingredients reads more like a map of the California coast, moving from the warm, sunny valley of Temecula up the coastal highway and ending in Mendocino overlooking the coastal cliffs. It’s an excellent route to traverse—about 10 hours by car, it weaves you through white sand beaches, wine country and Big Sur’s naturally-carved rock formations.

Farther up the coast, Sheringham Distillery also leans on kelp, harvesting winged kelp from the rougher shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca off Vancouver Island. The water is rugged and wild, best watched in front of a fire at, say, The Wickaninnish Inn, perched on the shores of the island. (Perhaps with a gin martini in hand?)

Vancouver's Sheringham gin was recently named the best contemporary gin in the world

Each bottle of Sheringham's Seaside Gin manages to capture the freshness of the ocean and the wild mysteries of the evergreen forests through flavors of maritime salinity and subtle pine notes. It’s as refreshing as a stroll along the seaside.

That’s the draw of gin. Sipped in situ, it enhances the moment, bringing out the sights and smells around you. Come home, and it will take you back, if only for the duration of a cocktail.

Shake It Up

A cocktail sipped at home can bring back all those good travel vibes. Try this recipe, featuring Vietnam’s Sông Cái Floral Gin.

SÔNG CÁI MARTINI

This unique cocktail includes rice wine vinegar, which brightens the drink and tones down the sweetness of the vermouth, creating a balanced martini. You can substitute it with champagne or sherry vinegar.

INGREDIENTS

2 fl oz Sông Cái Floral Gin

1/2 fl oz vermouth blanc

1/2 tsp rice wine vinegar

2 dashes orange bitters

Small pinch salt

Ice

METHOD

1 - Into cocktail shaker filled with ice, pour gin, vermouth, vinegar, orange bitters and salt. Shake until cold (approx. 15 seconds) and strain into a chilled martini glass.

2 - If desired, garnish with skewered chilled olives or lemon zest twist.