Above: a sampling of 2020 Canadian Artisan Spirit Competition medal winners in the Contemporary Gin (Flavoured Sub-Category)
Black, haskap and cloudberries. Rhubarb, citrus and cucumber. Spruce tips, seaweed and Earl Grey tea. These are just a sampling of the innovative flavourings in Canadian artisan gins, including award winners in what was a flavoured gin sub-category of the 2019 Canadian Artisan Spirit Competition. In 2020, it becomes a full-fledged category of its own.
“The introduction of a flavoured gin subcategory last year allowed us to get a better sense of what happening in the market, and clearly distillers are applying some creativity in this space,” says ADC and CASC founder Alex Hamer, announcing the new Flavoured Gin standalone category. “That said, our priority is to ensure that the spirits being presented to the judges are still recognizable as gins. We will continue to apply the standard that juniper must be dominant for this category.”
A juniper-dominant flavour is the global gold standard for defining gin. While the US Code of Federal Regulations (27CFR Part 5.22) says that gin must “derive its main characteristic flavour from juniper berries,” EU Spirit Drinks Regulations (Council Regulation EC No. 110/2008) merely say that gin “is a juniper flavoured spirit,” and its “taste is predominantly that of juniper.” While gin’s alcohol by volume (ABV) must be at least 40% in the U.S., it can be as low as 37.5% in the EU.
Here at home, Canadian Food and Drug Regulations (C.R.C., c. 870), section B.02.041 defines ways of making gin, by redistilling and potentially blending alcohol “redistilled with or over juniper berries.” It says gin can contain “other aromatic botanical substances, added during the redistillation process, a sweetening agent, and a flavouring preparation.” Only if no sweetening agents have been added may gin be labelled “Dry Gin or London Dry Gin.”
Oenophiles know that even dry-tasting wines commonly have up to 10 grams per litre of so-called residual sugars; sweetness below that level is not discernible by most palates, and can be used to simply round out the flavour and mouthfeel of wine and other alcoholic beverages. Some commercial brands such as the Italian Malfy Gin, with lightly sweetened blood orange, lemon and grapefruit flavours, have only a few grams per litre of sugar.
It’s increasingly common for commercial flavoured gins such as Tanquery’s Flor de Sevilla and Gordon’s Premium Pink to label themselves “gin-based spirit” or even “gin liqueur.” According to sites like the Finnish national alcoholic beverage monopoly alko.fi, which lists the sugar content of spirits sold domestically there, those bottlings contain 55 and 70 grams per litre of sugar, respectively. Certain flavours of Whitely Neill flavoured gin contain more than 90 grams of sugar per litre according to one UK analysis, approaching the sweetness of Coca-Cola, which by comparison, contains about 110 grams per litre of sugar.
Sweetness is just one consideration. Among small producers, gin aged in oak barrels is a common brand extension. In Canada, pertaining to the barrel-aged gin craze, regulations prohibit age statements but say, “gin that has been held in suitable containers may bear a label declaration to that effect.”
The development of so-called New American, New World or New Western gin is another craft-spirit industry innovation. Long before Ryan Reynolds came calling, Portland’s House Spirits launched Aviation Gin in 2006, a spirit in which juniper’s flavours and aromas are present, but not as prominent as in the London Dry style, and balanced with other—often regional—botanicals. The small-batch spirits movement has helped gins in this style gain popularity and acceptance.
The feeling is less warm amongst certain fans in the UK, a spiritual home of gin (which has its roots in Dutch juniper-infused medicines and genever spirit). The Campaign for Real Gin was founded in Cambridge as early as 1978. More recently, companies like Hayman’s (founded in 1863) have taken up the cause, with its Call Time on Fake Gin manifesto launched in 2018, to rally consumer awareness of “gins that have little or no evident connection to juniper.” The debate, it seems, is evergreen.