Look for these savoury spirits on your travels
If you like seaweed-kissed Sheringham Seaside and Isle of Harris gins, try maritime-inspired U.K. bottles like Bullard’s Coastal Gin, Fishers Gin, Da Mhile Organic Seaweed Gin and Mermaid Salt Vodka, as well as North Vancouver’s Copperpenny Gin No. 006 Oyster Shell (a collaboration with Fanny Bay Oysters).
Martini-friendly olive gins include B.C.’s own Deep Cove Mediterranean plus international gins like Gin Mare, Portobello Road Savoury Gin and Four Pillars Olive Leaf Gin.
Drink your vegetables: Piger Henricus from Quebec’s Les Subversifs and James Gin Asian Parsnip Gin elevate the humble root vegetable. Make it a salad with Piedmont white-truffled-infused Cambridge Truffle Gin and some Tomates liqueur from Domaine Cazottes in France.
Next-level umami: Eimverk in Iceland uses dried sheep dung to smoke the barley for its Floki single malt; Audemus Umami Gin from France features caper and Parmesan flavours; Butcher’s Gin “marinates” meat-rub botanicals and a little dried meat in the spirit; and the gins from Holyrood Distillery in Edinburgh (co-founded by Calgarians) showcase variations on juniper, sea salt and beeswax.
—by Charlene Rooke