Broken Heart

Joerg Henkenhaf (a pilot) and Bernd Schnabel (an engineer), two German’s living in New Zealand formed a friendship around a love of distilling. The two men had very similar ideas on what a gin should taste like and spent three years crafting away on the recipe for what they considered to be a perfect gin. Sadly, in 2012, Bernd became ill with a particularly ruthless strain of cancer and passed away. Joerg carried on and launched this label in memory of his friend. Malt is one of the botanicals in the liquid, representing the importance of genever in the history of gin. They are unusual in using it as a botanical and not as the cereal off which the Neutral Spirit is made from. Hops and ginger also come in to play, both tipping their hats to a Purl – an ancient hot punch consisting of ale and gin into which sugar and spices were steeped. Orange blossom, too, has its place in both history and in Broken Heart Gin. It was used to mask the smell of tobacco in yesteryear – a vice particularly prevalent amongst maritime towns. Italian juniper, lemon peel, coriander, angelica and lavender form the rest of the named botanicals. All of the botanicals are macerated for three days in a base alcohol of molasses before being distilled in a 150-litre copper pot Carl still. Distillation, which is undertaken by Joerg, takes around four hours, with the resulting spirit blended with purified glacial water to 40% (and 57% for the Navy Strength). The liquid is then filtered and hand bottled. The Southern Alps water and the lavender – a plant which is grown in abundance in New Zealand’s South Island – bring some Kiwi provenence to Broken Heart Gin, and with it a somewhat modern angle to the botanicals. That's the back story to this one. It was paired with Cucumber and Tonic and I had it after The Roots Dry Gin which I preferred due to it's oily grapefruit base and 45 abv vs this ones 40%. I'd like to try this one again by itself one day but as it stands it didn't make a big impact.