This is Cocktails Distilled, a podcast that takes your favorite spirits and liqueurs from the still to the cocktail glass.
In each episode, we talk to distillers and creators about particular expressions that their brand have released, what they are, why they were created, and in what cocktails they can be used.
Are you ready to understand what's in your glass, or perhaps should be?Welcome to Cocktails Distilled. Until relatively recently, whenever you thought of Islay in Scotland, you probably would have thought about whisky.
But in 2011, that all changed with the introduction of the botanist gin. As the name suggests, it's a gin that is not afraid to take the flavors and local botanicals from its surrounding hills, shores, and even bogs.
Thirteen years later, the brand has just released an expression that further navigates Islay's flavors. but not just for experimentation's sake.Instead, they continue their mantra of creating gins for cocktails and gins for bartenders.
To find out more, we talked to Adam Hannes, head distiller at Brookladdy Distillery, where the botanist is made, about flavor, botany, and how strong a gin really can get.Thanks for joining us, Adam.
Jeff, thank you very much for having me.
Now you've just released your new limited edition distiller's drink version of your signature Islay Dry Gin.How will consumers find it different?
Well, it's a really interesting question.So with the botanists, we've got a lovely, balanced chin.And as you say, we are kind of representing, you know, our island home.
So the 22 native botanicals that we have, they kind of really give us a sense of base.You know, there's not a really strong prairie profile in any one way.The botanists, for example, it's not
massively full of juniper or massively spicy, it's really well balanced and we allow those floral 22 botanicals to really shine.
With the distiller's strength, what we've done, I mean on the face of it, it feels like it's very similar, but I think as soon as you start to experience the flavor, that kind of different strength, it allows the balance of the spirit to be very, very different.
Essentially what we've done is trying to kind of just give a little bit more viscosity, a little bit more texture in the palate, a little bit more of those kind of tunic flavors.
And really just by how we blend, how we mix the distillate and how we mix the water and keep the strength right, it really can drastically change the flavor profile.
So for the distiller strength, what we're looking to do is really give us a bit more kind of body, a bit more presence in the glass.And it's amazing how different it is.
Well, let's talk about the flavor.What sort of flavors are dominant in the expression?
Well, what we will find is with the flavors that we have with the botanist when we distill a string, we're going to find that we will be a bit more tuna-forward, which is really interesting, as I say, when you think about the balance that the botanist has.
46%, the distiller's strength at 50, it really comes across very, very differently on the palate.And the way that those flavors, the balanced flavor sets is really different.
So juniper forward, but we still really want to showcase those 22 Isle of Bataille.So it's really floral, it's really herbal.You get those kind of green, kind of fresh notes coming through, which really is the signature style of the botanist.
It's really what we're looking to achieve.
Now, as you mentioned, it is 4% stronger than what you normally release.Most people might think that would make it rougher, but how is that 4% noticeable?
Well, that's a good point.Actually, yeah, you would think with a bit more alcohol, it would be a bit rougher, but when we're distilling, so, you know, you mentioned in your intro the, you know, the kind of the whiskey heritage we have.
So that really informs how we distill our gin as well.I am a whiskey distiller, of course, and we also happen to make gin.So I don't necessarily know how all other gin distillers make their gin.
But what we do with that whiskey background is we really kind of think about the contact with copper that the liquid in the still has.So we distill relatively slowly.We're in no rush to make the Vodna.
And what we find is that there's the alcohol that we use, the neutral grade alcohol, as we are macerating that in the still with the botanicals, the core botanicals we use.
As we're distilling, we promote reflux a lot in the still, so that low-min still is very particular and it gives us a lot of reflux.And effectively what that's doing is it means as the vapors rise up the still,
they're condensing on the side of the still or in the water jacket that we have at the top and running back down, we get contact with copper and that just purifies and it strips out any impurities in the spirit.The copper is cleansing.
So that's something we do with our whiskey distillation and I think when we then distill, so there's two parts to the distillation. There's our core botanicals, our nine core botanicals in the still.
And then we have our 22 island botanicals in a casket in the neck of the still.
So once those vapors have made it through all the obstacles that promote reflux, they're going to go through that basket and it's a vapor infusion of extracting those island botanicals.
So our botanists, what they'll do throughout the year is they'll pick those botanicals in peak season through the course of the year. Once they have dried and stored those materials, we are able to then distill them.It's a long process.
It's a year's worth of picking before we're able to then start distilling.
When we then get those into the still and we get that vapor coming through, what we find is that that slow process, that gentle kind of extraction of those natural oils from the Islay botanicals, we get a really delicate spirit.
It's really, really delicate.And when we think about the strength we bottle out with the botanist at 46% ABV, that's quite strong.Most gins are 40, 37 unless you get into the Navy strength territory.
At 46% we've selected that because of the quality of the distillation and the way it carries flavour and brings viscosity because there's less dilution.Because that's water and distiller strength is kind of building up on that.
And when you have less dilution and all that, you think about when you add, again, from a whiskey background, when we're doing a whiskey tasting and we add a little splash of water, it changes the character so much.
And then there's the way we blend up, as I said, the water, the ratio of distilled that we used, neutral green alcohol.So it's not just as simple as it's another 4%, it's a bit stronger, it's a bit rougher.
Actually, by using less water and keeping it strong, we find that that viscosity, that texture works really well.And those flavors are a bit more concentrated.So again, that juniper is a bit more forward and it stands out really well in cocktails.
You know, I think it's going to, as I say before, the botanist at 46 is very delicate and at 50, that 50% ABV,
allows us to really kind of have that essence of the botanist to stand up a bit taller, a bit stronger, have more presence, if you like, in the drinks, which is something that I think, you know, the botanist, it was really built, you know, we talked about, you know, 2011, we first brought the botanist to the world.
And the brand was built in the bars and the entree.It was, you know, that word of mouth, the bartenders, you know, because they recognize the quality of the spirit.When we go back to 2011, we were an independent distillery.
We just started making the botanists.We were then bought over by Remy Control, who of course have enabled us to grow even further, which is fantastic.
Early days we didn't have a huge marketing budget we didn't have a huge kind of advertising campaign behind us it was purely the quality of the spirit. Because these guys are at the top of their craft and they recognize a good spirit.
They want to work with it.They want to take it on.
And really for us, again, that balanced flavor profile and that complex recipe means that there's quite a lot of options for a bartender to be able to think about the flavors in that gin and how you highlight it, how you work with it to showcase it in different lights.
Again, we foraged what's local to us on this lovely tiny island on the west coast of Scotland. But a lot of those flavors that we have in the botanicals, there will be similar flavors in botanicals growing all around the world.
So we want people to think about what is local to them.
And again, it's very much that kind of craft that people who want to think about tea tailoring drinks, who are interested in the bartenders who, again, at the top of their game have really helped us build the botanist because we've taken that approach with it.
It sounds to me as if you've spent actually quite a bit of time thinking about the end use for your gin. Do you think that's something that should happen more?
I do.I do.And it's an interesting one because quite often I would suggest I do a bit of the opposite.Because as a distiller, my job is to make a great spirit.
I'm not thinking too prescriptively about how the botanist should be drunk and what should be done with it.But I'm thinking about making a great spirit that can happen with.
I think there's a lot of principles of distillation, those things I'm talking about, that slow distillation, that crafting a quality spirit that's well balanced and speaks to our place.It's not going to be for everyone.
A lot of cocktails, or people who drink or enjoy cocktails on a bigger, mass scale, aren't necessarily thinking about the quality of the spirit that goes in there, or flavors it has to bring.
I think we're very much a niche in that high quality spirit. and making the best spirit that we could do.
Again, coming from that whiskey background, we make whiskey, we craft whiskey in a way that when it goes into the bottle, spent years, spent decades working on this whiskey, and here it is.
With the gin, there's an element of that where we get to the stage where we go, all right, this is beautifully well-balanced drink, and quite often, it'll be drunk neat. with a botanist.
When we do sampling, when we do tasting, we want to make sure that actually, so that's not a normal thing, most gins are not drunk neat.Again, they're in a cocktail, they're in a gin and tonic.
But we're quite keen to let people taste the quality of that spirit because it really stands up well.
Again, if you cool it down and you keep a bottle in the freezer, you take a little sip and that viscosity with the temperature really comes through the way it sits in the palate and the way you can think about those botanicals.
So we've got a lot to be proud of with it.And so I do think that thinking about crafting that is really, really important. In terms of cocktails, again, I'm no expert, so I want to create the best spirit I can make.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoy drinking them immensely, but I enjoy seeing what someone has done with the spirit that we've made and how they've respected that, how they've translated that further, how they think that spirit suits another.
So I think for me, crafting that spirit in the best way we can means that it's We've done as much as we can to pass it on to someone else to make the best of it, if that makes sense.
Yeah.Now, what cocktails do you think best showcase the flavor of this distiller's strength?
With the distiller's strength, you know, I think with the distiller's strength, something, again, like a Negroni, I think would work pretty well.Something like a Martini.I came across recently a Red Snapper.
Again, the idea of having the gin in there to really give you that spirit forward, that chimba tag was coming through.I think
With a botanist, I think it would be good, but I think with a distiller's drink, it's excellent, because it just stands a bit taller, it's got a bit more presence in the glass, and I think it gives a lovely balance.
So really, it's cocktails that, where the gin can shine.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.And I think, again, as we touched on before, the idea of that extra 4%, it's not just a little bit stronger, a little bit more alcohol, it's more of that character, it's more flavour.
That's what the distiller's drink is all about, which gives the bartenders something to really work with, something to really stand up in the hotels that bit more.
It's just a different version of the botanist to be able to showcase a different way to make different drinks.
What other ingredients or flavors do you think play really well with distiller's strength?
It's interesting.I think when you think about how we've approached making the distiller's strength and the botanist, those flavors stand up really well.
So again, those herbal kind of fresh characteristics, those kind of green kind of herbaceous notes from the Islay botanical When you make a drink, you can highlight those.You can choose to highlight those.
Again, using lots of fresh, green, herbal characters in your cocktail will work pretty well because the spirit is versatile.It will work with that.
Equally, when you think about the core botanicals we use, of course, for any gin, we must have a base of juniper as the predominant flavor. but we'll also use coriander, we'll use cinnamon, cassia bark as our core traditional non-botanical.
And I think when we think about making a drink, again, with a bit more spice, a bit more earthiness, again, maybe that bitterness of the maragroni, that citrus, again, we use orange and lemon peels in our botanist, but that citrus, again, can work really well.
I think that the beauty of the botanist is it's not one style and one style only.There is that ability for a bartender to be creative to it.
And it goes back to that point I was talking about when we think about those flavors, when we taste the chimney and we think about what we get from it and then what flavors we want to work with or the bartender wants to work with.
If they respect that liquid and they highlight those notes, I think it works really well with anything.
You know, I think as long as you're taking time to think about what botanicals or flavors you're getting and how you might want to work with it, I think there's a huge range of versatility there.Quite often we see with
gin brands that they're quite prescriptive about.They have a serve, they have a way of drinking, they have a style, a flavor.And the gin is almost designed to fill that kind of category, if you like, or that flavor profile, which is fantastic.
But I think with the botanist, It's all about the quality of the spirit.
It's again, the thoughtfulness and picking what's local to us and that blend of botanicals and how it's created, and then not being prescriptive, not saying you must drink it like this, allowing that creativity to really come through in the drinker and make it more of an experience, make it more of a bit of exploration, you know, for the bartender and for the drinker who's enjoying that in the bar.
Now, what we should probably talk about is the botanicals.You talked about the core botanicals that are in it, and you mentioned the 22 that sit in the basket.Give us a bit more detail about those 22.
What sort of flavors and what sort of botanicals are you working with?
Well, it's a really interesting thing because at this time of year, James and Kate are two professional foragers.When the weather's good, when the conditions are right, they're out picking the Islay botanicals.
And you've kind of got this lovely range of botanicals and flowers and plants that we're used to seeing day to day or through the season on Islay.
We always know the picking season starts because we get this beautiful flush of gold and yellow as the gorse bushes start to come into flower, kind of end of March into April.
And what you get from the gorse, I don't know if you're familiar with it, with the plant at all, but it's very spiky.So they always get a few injuries from the gorse when they're picking, but can't pick it first thing in the morning.
You have to wait until it kind of warms up.The sun's on it a little bit and you get this lovely, delicate coconut note coming through.
And again, if you were taking a walk through the woods or something where there's a lot of gorse and it's come out, you get this beautiful kind of just this lovely coconut fragrance.And so for me, that's a lovely thing.
That's one of those kind of spring kind of moments on the island that you always look forward to after the winter.
So we're picking some of the gorse as we then go through the season, you know, they're picking wild thyme, they're picking, there's a few different types of mint, which again, you know, so either you have a lot of peat bogs, you have a lot of kind of, if we were in the west coast of Scotland, we have a lot of rain.
So we get a lot of mint growing around the kind of peat moss, these kind of wet areas.And so you'll get, what I mean, you'll get apple mint, you get a lot of different types again, that
you brush against them as you're walking past and you get this lovely kind of menthol, minty aroma.
And I think the mint, to me, is one of those botanicals that always comes through really nicely in the botanist, you know, because we're using a few different types.
It's a lovely kind of, probably my favorite botanical, you know, that we pick of the 22, you know, I won't go through them all, is a plant called, we call bog myrtle, or sweet gale.And it's
It's a plant that is so fragrant, and it's such an iconic thing because pretty much every child in Ireland, when you're young, through the summer, your family's out cutting peats.
Maybe not so much today, but we would cut peats on the peat moss so that we have fuel to keep the house warm during the winter.
On these lovely sunny days, you know, when you're out on the moss, you'd rather be on the beach, but my father always told me, if you don't help get the peats in, you don't sit next to the fire in the winter, so we always help.
You get these lovely kind of, again on the moist, these lovely kind of plants, spoke myrtle, that when you crush the leaves, it's amazing kind of menthol, sweet, beautiful aroma.
And the reason we would do that is when you get a calm day and there's not much wind, you get the midges, the little tiny flies that bite and scratch.So midges, they're like a smaller version of a mosquito.
They frown around your ears and your eyes and they're terrible.So when you're trying to work and you get these, these midges are terrible.But if you crush the leaves and you rub the oils on your skin,
too potent, it's too strong for the midges and they kind of leave you alone.
So when we use bog martle, for me again, that's such an evocative smell of the place of Islay, you know, that again, as you get a warm day and you're walking the peat moss and you get this lovely aroma, it's a lovely kind of botanical.
So really with the botanist, it was those 22 Islay botanicals were selected by my predecessor, Jim McEwen, who is the master distiller here, from when Brookline A reopened up until 2015.
And again, Jim's a keen walker, you know, an Enoch born and bred, you know, so somebody from Islay.
And really what he wanted to do was just capture that sense of Islay, those smells, those things that mean so much to us, those amazing fragrances, and distill them.And of course, as a whiskey maker, you can't add anything to your whiskey.
You have amazing creativity with water, barley, yeast, and aging in barrels. But to go that step further, to bring a bit more of the character of Isla into the gin, then distilling those botanicals that were selected was just an absolute dream.
And again, for me to be able to continue that, it's such a lovely thing to be able to capture that whole season, that whole spring, summer into autumn.
and distill that, and when you taste that and you smell that, I mean, I've been lucky enough to travel the world to my childhood.
I remember being out in San Francisco a few years ago, doing a tasting, and I'd been away from home for a little while, closed my eyes, and I'd noticed that you could get that lovely menthol, that mint, that bog myrtle, and it just takes you home.
So it's a real privilege to be able to distill that and let other people around the world taste that.So yeah, it's a tremendous kind of idea to take those 22 little bagels.
It must be wonderful to have the skill to be able to take those scents and those flavors and actually impart it into the liquid so successfully.
Yeah, it's such a privilege.And when you see again, it's quite a big kind of amount of botanicals that are dried, of course, they shrink.But when we distill, we take quite a large bag of botanicals.
Even so, the size of the still we use is quite a big still, and it feels like there's nothing there.
But that's where that vapor infusion really comes through, because you're not putting it in with the entirety of all the botanicals and all of the water and neutral alcohol that you start with.
It's only those vapors that come through the still that are infused with those four botanicals, stripping those really gentle oils out.
And again, through the distillation, of course, when we collect the distillation, it's all collected together and blended into the botanist.
through the distillation, when you sample off the still at different times, you get a different balance of flavor and different kind of botanicals releasing its essential oils.And it's an absolute joy just to do that.
You know, again, as a whiskey maker, you know, it's an amazing process anyway, but to have this extra element of this essence of home in the botanist is tremendous.
What do you want consumers to take away from their experience with distiller's drinks?
But distiller strength, again, it's a bit of an eye-opener for me.I think, as we touched on a couple of times there, it doesn't seem like much of a difference, but there's an amazing complexity to it.
And in terms of experimentation with a botanist, you know, we, we've created an amazing journal.We've, we've always wanted to be very protective of the botanist.
So any innovation we do, any, any creativity that we, that we work on behind the scenes, where we put into a bottle, we want it to, to really get, to mean something, to really kind of leave somebody with something.
And so we've done some releases of aged and rested botanists, so we've aged in casks.Again, as whiskey makers, we are fully versed in and really enjoy working and creating flavors like that.
Again, with the botanist, it's a beautiful gin, so we don't want to tinker with it too much.But when we start looking at how we blend from the distillate and how we blend to mix the components together into a bottle,
It's amazing how even 0.1% of a difference using the concentrate in a blend really shapes the viscosity, the texture and the flavor.So that was a really interesting thing for me to go through.
Alongside the distiller's drink, we'd previously released the Hebridean drink, which again is a 51.5% ABV expression of the botanist.
And going through that process of experimentation and blending and just understanding how the spirit works at different ratios was an absolute revelation to be able to have a next-door library of samples of all of these experimentations.
And so there were so many things that popped out. And again, when we speak to the bartenders, we speak to them because again, we are built in that area.We love the fact that people are creative with the spirit that we make with the bottles.
And when we think about, again, something that's a little bit stronger, I think particularly in the US,
It's a very sophisticated cocktail scene, there's a lot of knowledge, a lot of expertise, and so when we speak to them and we think about what we have in terms of experimentation at the distillery, it kind of felt natural that we would present them with something that would really suit their craft, that would really suit what they do with it, because we've really enjoyed the experimentation with how it comes together here.
What has the reaction to the expression been by consumers and the trade?
Yeah, it is still quite early days, but again, through the process, it's been really well received, I think.
Maybe people don't want to tell me that it's no good to my face, but every time I've done a tasting, every time I've kind of gone through the process and we've kind of looked at the liquid, I think there's a real positivity.
There's a real kind of, you know, the bartenders can almost go in with the idea that 4% won't make much difference.It's just a bit stronger, but when they taste that, wow, okay, this is something I'm going to take away.
I'm going to think about, I'm going to work on. So, initially, I think it's been really well received.I think it's really interesting.
And yes, it's still very early days, you know, it's just kind of making its way out, you know, onto the shelves, behind the bars and into people's homes.So, you know, I hope for more positive reviews, really.
It sounds like you've been doing a lot of experimentation.What can people expect in the future from the botanist with that in mind?
I can't give too much away as I'm terrible for giving away too much information every time I speak to people.So I think, as I say, with innovation, with experimentation, we always want to do the right thing.
Respect for the liquid, respect for the place, respect for what we've done in the past.And that's why over the years, in the gin category, there's been There's a new release every day, you know, there's, there's new flavors every day.
And that's not really for us.We always believe there's a reason to do something, you know, we're quite philosophical, maybe we're quite principled, maybe, you know, but we don't want to just have innovation for the sake of innovation.
So there's a number of different projects we're kind of looking at working on. Again, my job as head distiller here, of course, is across Proclari, Pochale, Optimo, and the botanist.We're doing a lot of experimentation across everything we do.
But particularly with the botanist, there's a lot we can do, there's a lot we want to look at, but it has to be the right thing.It has to
pretty well, and again, as a blender, the releases we've released so far with the botanists, where we've experimented with strength, we've experimented with that kind of balance of flavor, that for me feels like it's coming from the right place again.
We are doing that because we really want to get to grips and understand the spirit and how it can be different.
That distillation is incredible, how we bring those flavors through and how we can put that in a bottle in a way that gives people options, different ways of drinking, because it's all about theory.
I thought about that moment and giving people different ways of enjoying that, you know, kind of those flavors we get from the botanist is really, really important.
Again, with the aged and rested expressions we've released, it was natural for us, frankly, very beginning to put some of that botanist into casks to see what would happen. But we didn't release it six months later as a pink gin or anything else.
We first released the botanist in 2011.And in 2011, we filled our first spirit casks, but it's only now in 2024, the beginning of the year where we've released our Asian rested.So we spent the time.
to see how it ages, how the cats work, the different strengths that we can do, because the variation when you really get into the detail of experimentation is endless.
So it's not enough for us just to have the idea, try something, and put it in a bottle and sell it.We have to really make sure that it works at different levels.So yeah, there will be more things, but I think I'd best not give away too many secrets.
Who would you say this particular expression is aimed at?
I think, if you're a real gin lover, this is for you, because, again, with the botanist, we talked about that balance of flavor, that it's not too forward on juniper, it's not too spicy, it's not too, it's a lovely balanced gin.
And over the years, we've had so many people say to us, I don't like gin, but when I tried the botanist, wow, that's amazing, because it's accessible, it's open, there's a loving texture, a loving feeling, it's not what people always assume gin to be.
So I think that's definitely kind of one thing.
If you are a gin drinker, maybe you are looking for something that's a little bit, you know, got a bit more presence, a bit more power, stands up, and you know, you want that flavor to come through in a cocktail or a drink you make at home.
I think that's where the Distiller's Strength really comes in, let's say for the bartenders, the guys who are crafting drinks, making cocktails.
a bit more presence, a bit more body, a bit more juniper in there, a bit more of that character of those botanicals.So it gives them a bit more to kind of think through.
And then again, if you're a gin drinker at home, you want to do something different, you want to experience just a little bit more viscosity, you want to experience a bit more of that kind of botanicals on the palate.I think that's it.
I think it's still very accessible. I think it's still a very good gin for most gin drinkers.It's not too strong, but I think 50% for a gin, I think people will see that as strong.
So I think it's for those people who know gin, who know the category, want to experiment, want to try new things, and just want that act of a gin at the front of the drinks that they make.
Now, as a limited edition, is this going to be available everywhere that the bottom list is normally stocked?Or is it restricted a little bit?
Yeah, at this point in time, I think it's just a US release, but I don't know.Maybe one we'll have to check with the marketing team to see if we can make it out in the edit.But to answer your question on that, I think
At the moment, it's a US release, but potentially it would be something that we would roll out.
I don't see why not, but again, it's not necessarily my decision to make, so I don't know if that's a good answer for you or not, but I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that one.
And why is it only a limited release?Or is it one of those things that if it goes well, it might be put into the permanent roster?
I think, yeah, that's it.It's a limited release because, again, we're trying to, you know, kind of pay back to those buyers and pay back even support us with something different, something kind of new.
And we'll sit and we'll see what the response is.And if it's, you know, if it goes the way we think it will with the quality of that liquid, then absolutely we can, we can think about banding it around.But, um.
I think, again, particularly for the US, it's a big market for us.As I talked about that sophistication of the biothenders out there, we want to make sure that they get the first option, the first look at this.
Now, if people want to find out more about the gin or any of your other expressions, they can, of course, go to the website, which is thebotanist.com, or connect with the brand via your socials.
Absolutely.Yes, absolutely.Or, you know, if you want to go a step further, you can come and visit the distillery on Ireland.It's not the easiest place to get to, I'll be honest.We're a very small island, Westcourt, Scotland. But yes, I think we do.
We make sure we have a good presence.There's always a lot on the social.There's always a lot of good information.Again, cocktail ideas.A bit more about the philosophy, about the, you know, the culture of IATA.
Just we like to make sure there's new news and there's kind of updates and things that are going.So socials are great.And again, with the website, you've got a lot of detail there and a lot of
I suppose documenting what we've done over the last few years, you know, a lot of the stories, a lot of the people we've worked with.And again, it's not just about gin.
There's a lot of really interesting articles and things out there about flavor because ultimately what we're doing is, is creating flavor.And that's what we want to experience when we, uh, raise gin.
All right, Adam.Well, look, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today.
I really appreciate the invite and it's my absolute pleasure to talk about what it is we do and hopefully get across some of the passion that not just I have for the place that we are in the world, but the whole team here and the botanists.
We want to communicate our story, how we make our spirits and really let people enjoy the quality for it.
And we'd also like to thank you for listening.Be sure to visit cocktails2steel.com to access the show notes.And if you like what you've heard, we'd love you to subscribe, rate, or give a review on iTunes.Until next time, cheers.
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