Trying to stand out in a positive way within the world of gin is an interesting challenge with many shades of grey. If we’re talking about products simply labeled as “dry gin,” rather than overtly “flavored” examples that are meant to be dominated by a single aspect, then there are fairly tight boundaries into which the final product must fall—and thus, only so much room truly available for real experimentation. You can only stretch so far away from the juniper-driven style of London dry gin, after all, before what you’re making is more easily interpreted as flavored vodka. It’s a delicate balancing act.
Many craft gins seek to differentiate themselves, then, with a focus on some kind of terroir—gins that seek to capture a specific location or show off that area’s native botanicals. English gin Whitley Neill is one such example, but their inspiration isn’t the English countryside one might expect. Rather, their gin is based on the botanicals and flora of South Africa. To simply quote the marketing materials:
This exceptional drink was created by Johnny Neill, a direct descendant of a long line of distillers, whose heritage stretches back as far as the Baobab trees found in Africa today. Inspired by his family’s sense of adventure, Johnny strove to create his own signature blend of Gin: a tribute to his English distilling heritage, and a homage to the enigmatic beauty of his wife’s African homeland. The result is Whitley Neill Handcrafted dry Gin; a balanced, distinctive Gin that blends classic Gin botanicals with exotic African botanicals to create a liquid with a flavour as unique as its heritage.
For our purposes, that yields a gin that is primarily interesting for containing some botanicals one doesn’t tend to see in this product, from baobab to Cape gooseberry, supplementing more familiar gin botanicals such as coriander, cassia bark, orris root, angelica, sweet orange peel and of course juniper. So with that said—let’s give it a taste and find out where those African elements have gotten us.