Despite its unprecedented growth over recent years, the gin bubble is far from bursting. Year after year, distillers the world over continue to release all manner of exciting, fantastical creations, and the IWSC’s contemporary gin category celebrates just that: exciting, innovative gins that stray from the classic London Dry style of distillation.
Aside from the all-important juniper, contemporary gins often experiment with unusual botanicals to reflect a sense of place – take for example Kyoto Distillery’s KI NO TEA Dry Gin, which blends tea leaves from the Uji region south of Kyoto city, or the Australian Four Pillars Spiced Negroni Gin, which harnesses Tasmanian pepperberry leaf to create a particularly bold and flavoursome gin.
For this week’s #HandpickedDrinks, we’ve chosen five particularly characterful contemporary gins from Scotland, England, Japan and Australia, each of which employs a range of intriguing botanicals to create a truly unique drink.