Gin
THE GRAPES OF GIN CAROLINE ASHFORD AKA THE GIN QUEEN EXPLORES GRAPE WINE GINS AND ASKS THE QUESTION... HAVE AUSTRALIAN DISTILLERS CREATED A NEW GIN CATEGORY? Since Four Pillars launched their Bloody Shiraz gin in 2015, taking their Rare Dry Gin and steeping it with locally grown Shiraz grapes, the wine gin category has grown significantly with over 20 Australian distillers now producing their own version. Using wine in gin is not a new phenomenon, Ferdinand’s Saar Dry gin is infused with Riesling grapes from the Saar region in Germany. French gin G’vine is made from grape-based spirit and infused with vine blossoms. There are also many Australian distillers that use grape spirit as the base of their gins. In addition, companies like Treasury Wines have released wine hybrids Squealing Pig Rosé and Pinot Noir gins. In these instances, finished wine is simply added to gin. The latest round of gin awards (IWSC and Spirits Masters) saw Four Pillars,
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Seppeltsfield Road Distillers and Never Never Distilling Co. collect medals for their ‘grape gins’, Bloody Shiraz, Barossa Shiraz and Ginache respectively. So, what are ‘grape gins’ and have Australian Distillers created a new gin category? Australian grapes gins are inspired by traditional English Sloe gins. The berries of the native blackthorn bush are steeped in gin for months at a time, and then sugar is added to counteract the tart, tannic flavours of the sloe. The result is more of a liqueur than a gin, with the most common ABV hovering around the 25% mark, although there are higher proof versions available. Blackthorn bushes are not native to Australia with small pockets mainly found in Tasmania that were planted by settlers, so as a wine-making nation, it seems obvious distillers would turn to grapes to create a twist on sloe gin.
What started as an homage to the gins of old has now become a collaborative art between vigneron and distiller. Cameron Mackenzie from Four Pillars admits that the team did consider making sloe gin at the beginning of the Four Pillars journey. “We knew that it was popular; we were asked when we were going to release one”. Not one to disappoint people, he invested a huge amount of time to research sloe gins. “We bought every single Sloe gin on the market, tasted them and tested the sugar quantity. The volume of sugar to spirit was shocking, even the driest had an extraordinary amount”. Somewhat fortuitously, it was around this time that a small parcel of grapes was dropped off by a producer at Rob Dolin wines, where Four Pillars was initially based. Mackenzie added them to Four
