Gin has without a doubt become a South African favourite — and for good reason. Easy drinking, diverse, and delicious in its simplicity or all jazzed up as a cocktail.
How you gin has become incredibly personal — a gin-dentity, so to speak. Bold and bitter or sweet treat? Whichever you prefer, these’s a juniper berry delight for every appetite.
Just when you think you’ve seen and experienced it all, Hendrick’s Gin drops a gorgeous new concoction. A once in a blue moon kind of delicacy…
Introducing Hendrick’s Lunar Gin.
This small batch, limited release gin has been conjured up from the oddities in Ms Lesley Gracie’s Cabinet of Curiosities at the Hendrick’s Gin Palace.
Ms Lesley Gracie is the Master Distiller at Hendrick’s Gin. With a background in chemistry, her genius lies in her fascination with flavours and how they work together, she visualises flavours as shapes and strikes to create a round, balanced flavour in all of her elixirs.
This most peculiar and unusual gin was conceived beneath the celestial light of the moon and yields an alluring complexity and a delightful warmth, which is best suited to refreshing sundowners, night-sipping, moon gazing and other sensible modes of contemplation.
The Lunar Gin bottle retains the distinctive Hendrick’s shape, evocative of Victorian apothecary jars, yet the colouring is a sophisticated, deep blue reflective of the night sky.
Ms Gracie is known for a spot of midnight gardening and regularly tends to her blossoming collection of botanicals under the influence of moonlight. It was here one moonlit evening, whilst tending to the botanicals in her beloved hothouse, she was inspired to create this refreshingly rich, warm, alluring gin.
Describing the inspiration behind Hendrick’s Lunar Gin, Ms Gracie said: “It’s a feeling. That feeling when it’s a real dark, calm night, there’s a clear sky and the stars are out. I like that feeling and wanted to bottle that sensation of sharing stories under the stars.
“In the still of the night, you can get all sorts of smells, there are certain flowers that only release their scent under the light of the moon. There is a peculiar sensory attachment to scents at night, your body doesn’t react to aromas in the same way as during daylight, the darkness changes things, including how you respond to those around you, everything feels different at night.”
Over the past two decades, Ms Lesley Gracie has amassed an array of botanicals, distillates and experimental liquids, which are housed in a locked cabinet in her laboratory, the Cabinet of Curiosities at the Hendrick’s Gin Palace. In 2018, she was awarded ‘Gin Distiller of the Year’ by the World Gin Awards in recognition of her ground breaking work.
Hendrick’s Lunar Gin is an intriguing combination of the refreshing, the warm and the floral and is designed to be shared and savoured of an evening as the sun goes down and the moon charges the sky.
Ms Lesley Gracie has shared three ways to enjoy her Lunar Gin (shh, it’s a secret).
1. Lunar & Tonic
Ingredients:
- 50ml Hendrick’s Lunar Gin
- 150ml premium tonic water
- 3 cucumber slices
- Black pepper
Method:
- Combine all ingredients in a highball glass filled with cubed ice
- Lightly stir and serve
- Garnish with 3 thinly sliced rounds of cucumber and a twist of black pepper
2. Moonlight Buck
Ingredients:
- 50ml Hendrick’s Lunar Gin
- 15ml lemon juice
- Top with ginger ale
- 3 slices of cucumber
- Twist of lemon
Method:
- Combine all ingredients in a highball glass filled with cubed ice
- Lightly stir and serve
- Garnish with 3 thinly sliced rounds of cucumber and a twist of lemon
3. Starry Old Fashioned
Ingredients:
- 50ml Hendrick’s Lunar Gin
- 7.5ml sugar syrup
- 1 dash orange bitters
- 1 dash Angostura Aromatic Bitters
- Orange twist
Method:
- Stir all ingredients over ice cubes in a mixing glass
- Strain into a rocks glass over ice
- Garnish with a twist of orange
For more information, visit: www.hendricksgin.com
Read also:
https://www.capetownetc.com/cape-town/restaurants/10-unique-cocktails-to-try-in-cape-town/