Gin is one of Britain’s most iconic spirits, thanks to the infamous 18th-century gin craze and a slew of modern gin parlors and distilleries that attract visitors in major cities from London to Glasgow. Annual sales of this classic British spirit top two billion British pounds.
And yet, despite its continued popularity, the future of the beloved beverage is uncertain. Populations of the common juniper tree—British gin’s defining ingredient—are dwindling across the United Kingdom. It leaves distillers without the tree’s seed cones, which lend the spirit its distinctive pine-like aroma and resinous feel.
“The fact that gin is quintessentially English, if its main ingredient is no longer growing—it could mean a cultural loss,” says Neil Beckett, owner of London-based Kingston Distillers Ltd., producers of Beckett’s Gin.
Climate Change, Disease and Other Threats
Common juniper is a conifer native to cool temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere and one of only three native conifers in Britain. The trees thrived across England and Scotland in the early modern period, with juniper berries collected in the highlands becoming one of Scotland’s leading exports in the 17th century and English juniper fueling the gin craze.
However, juniper populations have declined in size and number over recent decades as the species has failed to regenerate under natural conditions due to changes in habitat and ecosystem. Disease outbreaks have wiped out clusters of trees in northwest England, and rising temperatures due to climate change have exacerbated their decline in southern Britain.
To flavor their gin without British juniper, most distillers now use dried juniper imported from Italy and the Balkans, where the conifer’s populations are more robust. Others in Britain have adopted conservation as part of their mission and are committed to producing sustainable and unique premium gin with this local ingredient.
“There’s a connection between the land and the spirit,” says Barbora Tichakova, brand manager at Glasgow-based Crossbill Distilling. That connection has drawn staff at Crossbill Distillery into the Scottish highlands every autumn for the last 12 years, where they forage bags of ripe, dark blue-black juniper cones for use in their award-winning small-batch gins.
Near London, Beckett has harvested the wild juniper for his namesake London Dry Gin from Box Hill in Surrey since 2014. He has partnered with the U.K. National Trust and Natural England on a long-term conservation project to introduce a new juniper population using local seeds.
Meanwhile, Walter Riddel, founder of Hepple Spirits, leads an ambitious juniper conservation project in Northumberland. The Hepple team operates a nursery with hundreds of juniper seedlings propagated from local seeds and has partnered with Northumberland National Park and Natural England to launch a rewilding project on the Hepple estate to promote natural regeneration.
These efforts are good news for conservationists and gin lovers alike. Timothy King, a visiting researcher at Oxford University’s Biology Department who has worked with the endangered conifer, says the focus on British juniper in gin making “creates so much interest from the general public that it benefits the maintenance and improvement of whole ecosystems in the long run.”
The Wild World of Juniper
Gin made with British juniper offers a unique tasting experience. While there is some debate about the idea of terroir in spirits, with an infused spirit like gin, distillers agree the botanicals lend something distinct to each batch.
“Maybe it’s the climate, or maybe it’s the land they grow on, but they all taste different,” says Beckett of the various local and imported junipers he has sampled. Beckett uses homegrown mint alongside local juniper in his London Dry Gin, offering a rounded texture with notes of citrus, herbs and spices.
Chris Garden, head distiller at Hepple Spirits, agrees that juniper flavors differ. To him, Italian juniper tastes more floral than others, and Macedonian juniper is more robust. “You definitely get characteristics coming up from the land into the juniper and thus into the gin,” he says.
The wild juniper harvested on the Hepple Estate offers a bright, almost zest-like flavor to Hepple Gin. It’s likely because while most distillers use only the ripe cones, Garden also incorporates green cones. “It’s juniper in three dimensions,” he says.
At Crossbill Distilling, wild juniper is paired with foraged rosehip in Crossbill Red Dry Gin, giving it bold spiced notes and a warm feel. The company also produces seasonal varieties, incorporating other foraged ingredients such as Japanese knotweed and pea shoots. Recently, it made a special edition gin using juniper harvested from a 200-year-old tree.
Tichakova expects that the interest in premium gins made with British juniper will continue to grow, as will gin makers’ commitment to raising awareness around the issue, sustainable harvesting and other conservation efforts.
“Once you try it, you taste the difference,” she says. “It tastes like how it feels being there on the hill in the middle of nature.”
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Published: September 24, 2024
