Luxebook December 2021

BY AATISH NATH In India, almost all homegrown brands have chosen botanicals to showcase the country’s diversity when it comes to herbs, spices, foraged berries and fruits T he gin revolution in India can be credited to the alcohol’s inherent flavour palate. While international brands like Bombay Sapphire and Hendrick’s have been available in the country for a while, it’s only now, with Indian brands asserting themselves in the market, that the Indian consumer has truly begun to appreciate what sets each apart — the mix of botanicals that each distiller uses to create the final product. Says Rahul Mehra, co-founder of Third Eye Distillery, the company behind Stranger & Sons, “That’s the exciting part about gin, that it can be made anywhere, and it’s not got restrictions like a lot of other products in the spirits category.” The obvious choice While juniper berries are often consideredamust,andusuallymakes up 60-70 percent of the proportion of botanicals used, coriander seeds are the second most used mix-in. Anand Virmani, co-founder and CEO of NAO Spirits and Beverages says, “Coriander seeds are native to us, which is great, since we can find them in pretty much any state in India, so between these two, we’ve got about 80-90 percent of your entire botanical role covered,” For both gins that he markets, Virmani uses 8 botanicals for Hapusa and 9 for Greater Than. New distilleries give the final mix of infusions a great deal of thought. Aman Thadani, Founder of Pumori Gin says, “We came to these botanicals after several trials with over 50 botanicals and several combinations for recipes,” when discussing the herbs and flavours used for the gin with the bright red label. In India, almost all homegrown brands have chosen botanicals that showcase the country’s diversity when it comes to herbs, spices, foraged berries and fruits. In some cases that means specifying the provenance – like Pumori’s Himalayan Juniper, Stranger and Sons’ Gondhraj lemon peel. Nilgiris, the gin from Amrut Distilleries proudly takes its terroir – the distillery is surrounded by tea gardens — and bottles it, to give drinkers a gin that has notes of paan and tea. Says Nikhil Varma, Gin Distiller at Amrut Distilleries, which makes Nilgiris, “As it would happen, we chanced upon using paan (betel leaves) as a botanical and I worked towards complimenting it to create a harmony of flavours. That definitely extended the trial period to use not one but two different varieties of paan — Mysore paan and Kumbakonam paan. The former adds spice and florals while the latter is earthy, sweeter, floral and ALL ABOUT B OTANICALS The garden in my glass 10| L U X E B O O K | D E C E MB E R 2 0 2 1 D E C E MB E R 2 0 2 1 | L U X E B O O K | 1 1