Perennial passions

One of the great legacies of these drinks is vermouth, an aperitif which started life in 18^th century Italy, and which is now experiencing a wonderful renaissance in distilleries around the world. In its simplest form, vermouth is just a fortified, sweetened wine flavoured with bitterest wormwood. But most vermouths are flavoured with dozens of botanicals. At the Sacred Distillery in north London, they make an amber vermouth from English wine and botanicals including thyme, savory, cherry and plum stones. The South African vermouth Caperitif, meanwhile, is laced with more than 35 ingredients harvested from around the Western Cape: sour figs from the dunes, citrusy naartjies, cape gooseberries, kei apples. There are vermouths flavoured with lemon verbena, lavender, citrus peels, cinnamon, raspberries, vanilla, nutmeg, liquorice, rosemary and even myrrh.

Some of these recipes read more like perfumes than drinks. And there was a time when perfumes and libations were almost interchangeable (distillation was, after all, invented not to make strong liquor, but to capture essences to make scent). The earliest eau de colognes, with their uplifting notes of citrus, exotic flowers and herbs, were elixirs designed to be worn or imbibed. In the 19th century, there was also a fashion for adding ambergris – a rarity more often used by perfumers – to alcoholic punch.

“We even turned a few test distillations green when we tried different rose varieties… not exactly the look we were going for!” laughs Tinkture founder Hannah Lamiroy, who auditioned more than 190 different varieties of roses in her search for the perfect blend. “We were essentially looking for subtle, delicate aromas – when you taste our gin we want you to feel like you are taking a stroll through an English garden in bloom, not drowning in sickly perfume.”

Gin has traditionally been made with botanicals from all over the world: juniper from Tuscany, citrus peels from Spain, coriander from Morocco, liquorice from China. But more and more, we’re now seeing craft distillers shift their focus closer to home, using local, seasonal and foraged ingredients to give their recipes a strong sense of place. Cambridge Distillery produces a seasonal gin that changes twice a year: this year’s spring/summer edition was flavoured with wisteria, cow parsley and flowering currants, all hand-picked from the gardens and hedgerows around the distillery in Grantchester. When founder Will Lowe was commissioned to create a gin for the Nordic Food Lab – a think tank founded by Noma chef René Redzepi – he used formic acid derived from native woodruff ants to give the recipe a Scandinavian tang.

At her north London bar Tayēr + Elementary, International Bartender of the Year Monica Berg uses all kinds of unusual ingredients to give her drinks a culinary twist. “I always try to work with what’s around me, because it’s important to me to pay respect to the time and place I’m part of,” she says. “Some of my favourite ingredients are sea truffle (not to be confused with truffle seaweed ), sea buckthorn and green juniper – it’s always such a treat when they become available.”