Hernö Pink BTL gin

Just as the lockdown was taking effect I had an email from Jon Hillgren of Hernö. I’m a big fan of their gin, which is classic in its profile but somehow manages to be more vivid and 3D than most. Jon announced he had “a bottle” he wanted to send me. When it arrived it turned out to be the new Pink BTL gin.

Pink BTL comes across as a gin with issues. You’ll notice that it is emphatically the bottle (or more specifically the label) that is pink, not the gin. Jon would have no truck with giving gin a silly colour. In fact the accompanying letter begins with the sentence “This is a no-bullshit gin” in large type, a phrase that is repeated on the label. I’m not sure if having the word “bullshit” on you label might offend some potential stockists or customers, but you have to admire Jon’s conviction. The label also states: “This is not a cocktail. Pink Gin is a cocktail. This is a pink bottle of gin.”

The letter goes on to bemoan that many producers are jumping on the gin bandwagon but offering products that aren’t really gin. So Pink BTL is an attempt to be creative with gin, offering the fruity, floral profile “that so many are asking for”, while emphatically staying true to the juniper-driven essence of what makes gin gin. In fact we are told that Pink BTL actually uses more juniper than the regular Hernö gin.

The letter explains that neutral grain spirit is infused with juniper, coriander and strawberries, heated to 60 degrees C and left for 18 hours. Then rose petals, cassia, black pepper, lemon peel and vanilla are added and the liquid resdistilled, one-shot, then diluted to bottling strength (42%) using water from Hernö’s own well.

On the nose resinous pine and lemon peel are up front, but lurking behind is a sweet strawberry fruit. It really is quite subtle—as if Jon was terrified of its becoming cloying. You almost feel as if Jon has approached this whole project against his will. But it’s a point worth making that if you buy this gin because you want a sweet, fruity drink—and perhaps you don’t really like gin—then you will be disappointed. In fact, to you, it will simply taste of gin.

On the palate it has a smooth, polished mouthfeel. The juniper is strong but not fierce, and behind there is gentle strawberry and black pepper on the finish.

I try a fairly Dry Martini, made with Belsazar Dry, in what looked like 10:1 proportions, though it could have been wetter. Juniper is still up front, but the vermouth adds an exotic saline finish, joining that black pepper again. The nose has a definitely creamy note—we’re looking at strawberries and cream! It’s a clever balancing act between the stern juniper rod of classic gin and a soft, flighty summer fruit angle from the strawberry and rose.

An Aviation made with Hernö Pink BTL

I wondered how the light florality would work in an Aviation (50ml gin, 12.5ml lemon juice, 12.5ml maraschino and about a teaspoon of crème de violette). As it turned out there was no risk of it becoming cloying in combination with the cherry and violet elements. In fact it makes a very grown-up cocktail, with a complex interplay of savoury and soft flavours. The dry steeliness of the juniper still underpins, with the black pepper helping to keep the drink’s feet on the ground, but the faint strawberry fruit floats behind that, interweaving with the rose and violet. This cocktail is a good one for assessing gins, not least because the sweet and sour elements (maraschino and lemon juice) are present in quite small quantities.

I’m interested to see what elements come out when served just with tonic water. It certainly makes a nice enough drink, though in fact the dilution is not especially transformative. It’s still reassuringly juniper-dominated, though you do sense the rose now.

I also try Pink BTL in a Corpse Reviver No.2 (gin, curaçao, lemon juice, Cocchi Americano and a dash of absinthe). It’s a tough gig for a gin, as it’s up against some powerful sweet, sour, bitter and pungent flavours. This one turns out to be a nice example of its kind, and the strong juniper backbone of the gin can be relied upon to keep any classic gin cocktail on the straight and narrow, but I wouldn’t say that Pink BTL shone in this combination.

Ultimately, although Pink BTL has a strong presence, the things that make it different are those fairly subtle notes of strawberry, rose and black pepper. As a final experiment I make a White Lady, skipping the egg white and reducing the quantities of curaçao and lemon juice by half—normally you’re looking at about 50ml gin and 25ml each of the other two, but I cut these to 12.5ml, along the same lines as the Aviation. Sure enough, this works. It’s not a classic White Lady but you can appreciate the character of the gin.

And it’s a character worth appreciating. In the right sort of cocktail, in the right proportions, it creates harmonies with thought-provoking subtleties. Out of the ones I tried, a straight Martini probably works best, but in the Aviation—or other cocktails constructed with similar proportions—it has a lot to give, and makes for an adult drink with summery echoes.

Hernö: like gin, but more so

A rare bottle of Hernö Juniper Cask Gin, with a cask in the
background (the real ones are much bigger)

I went to the launch of a new gin on Monday, from Hernö in Sweden, proudly the northernmost distillery in the world (is this good?). Mrs H. rolled her eyes when she heard. “Another gin?” she said. “Surely we’re all ginned out now?”

It certainly seems that each new gin must have to fight its corner to get noticed, but what we’re also seeing is exploration into new types of gin. Not very long ago few people would have heard of Old Tom gin, the sweeter style that predated London Dry, but launching your own version seems to be the latest fad. Then there is navy strength* gin, with several of those launching recently. And also aged gin.

The gin we were launching on Monday, at the bijou Charlotte’s Bistro in Chiswick, fell into this last category. Hernö take their normal gin blend and age it, for just 30 days, in barrels made, not from oak as might be normal, but from juniper wood.

I’d not had the pleasure of sampling Hernö gin before. Their standard product, Swedish Excellence, comes in at 40.5% ABV. In their own 250-litre copper pot still at their distillery in the village of Dala near Härnösand, they distil it twice (presumably starting with commercial neutral spirit), first to make a vodka, getting the character from the interaction with the copper, then the second time to make the gin. Before this second distillation the botanicals are macerated, for varying amounts of time. The juniper and coriander are in there for 18 hours, but the fresh lemon peel, which master distiller Jon Hillgren explains he cuts himself from lemons bought at the local shop, is added just before distilling. The botanicals, which are all organic, also include cassia bark, black peppercorns, meadowsweet, lingonberries and vanilla.

DBS enjoying some Hernö. He's also a
fan—in fact they quote his tasting notes
in their brochure and on the website

I like a gin that fundamentally tastes of gin, and I’m immediately taken by Hernö. Big, aromatic juniper hits you first and bright, fresh citrus, but you can also clearly pick out the cassia and black pepper. It seems stronger than 40.5%, perhaps because the pepper gives a subtle bite.

There is also a Hernö Navy Strength, which is exactly the same gin but bottled at 57% (the water for dilution comes from their own well and there is no chill-filtering), and I’m even more taken by it. At this strength the vanilla comes through more strongly but you can still pick out the other ingredients; the residue in an empty glass develops a strong cassia character. Somehow they have made a very elegant gin, with some modern twists to an essentially classic profile. Where other gins might throw many more botanicals at the problem (or maybe fewer) and end up with a homogenised, one-dimensional taste, Hernö doesn’t take the flavour profile in any terribly whacky directions, but somehow manages to have a 3D vividness to the flavours that are there, yet deft and polished, without any sharp edges. It is gin, but more so.

So what of the aged gin we are here to launch, Hernö Juniper Cask Gin? The idea of wood-aged gin may well have caught on as an adjunct to the search for the true nature of Old Tom. All we really know about the latter is that it was sweeter than London Dry, most likely to mask the roughness of the underlying spirit in the days before the invention of the column still made relatively pure alcohol easy to achieve. Some assume that Old Tom was simply sugared, others believe the perceived “sweetness” came from a heavier, spicier botanicals, such as liquorice. Some have suggested that the barrels used to store and transport the spirit before the 1861 Single Bottle Act would have affected the flavour—and indeed ageing in wood has long been a way of softening and adding complexity to spirit (the whisky industry is based on it, and Seagram’s gin in the US has always been rested in oak barrels for three to four weeks before bottling).

You can see how the gin has soaked through
the wood of the barrel

Most wood-aged spirit has spent some time sitting in oak barrels, which imparts a classic vanilla/butter flavour. But Hernö, which is pretty juniper-led to start with, instead gets to sit in barrels made from juniper wood. Jon explains that none of the available juniper trees in Sweden was big enough to produce planks more than a couple of inches wide, so the timber was imported from the US and made into barrels by Sweden’s only cooper. Jon admits that juniper wood is not really ideal for storing liquids, as the contents seep through to the outside. The wood exudes a resinous sap which can be clearly smelled.**

After just 30 days the gin has a pronounced yellow colour. But instead of plump, creamy oak character, you get enhanced high notes, a fresh resinous zing and a bright fruitiness. The juniper presence borders on the menthol-like but that just-peeled lemon element still comes through too, along with something floral and a hint of anise. On the palate it does not seem as dramatically changed as it does on the nose, but it is instructive to compare the cask gin side by side with the navy strength. The balance with the latter seems to favour the warm spice notes more, meaning that ironically it comes across as “woodier” than the wood-aged version.

Add tonic water to the cask gin and a sweet, clover-like floral note emerges (perhaps this is meadowsweet?). It’s a great combo, though I find it needs a bit more tonic than usual to achieve a comfortable balance. Likewise it makes a fascinating Martini, but again it seems to want a fairly a “wet”mix of about two parts gin to one part vermouth. With its pokey, piney juniper thrust, the cask gin also stands its ground easily in a Negroni, which I think is essential in this in this gutsy combination.

Hernö gins, as with any other boutique product, are not cheap: the Swedish Excellence is about £30 for 50cl, and you’ll be lucky to find Navy Strength or Cask Gin at all. But do seek it out. There is something rather life-affirming about the way they have passionately reinvented flavours we think we are so familiar with.

And the Cask Gin comes with a cap of beeswax that Jon obtains from a neighbouring beekeeper and hand dips himself.

* About 57% alcohol by volume, the point at which, if you splash some on to gunpowder, the powder can still be ignited. Rum which could pass this test was said to be “proof”, hence the old measurement of “degrees proof” as a way of indicating alcoholic strength, where 100 degrees is this tipping point. Hence “overproof” rum that is stronger than this.
** Jon confirms that in time they will experiment with reusing the barrels, perhaps creating distinct “second fill” and “third fill” editions.