Here is another interesting gin from an interesting country – Norway!! I was not aware before this that Norway made any gins. In fact, this brand gin has been made for only 2 years (started in 2015). In their second year – 2016, they won the coveted San Francisco World Spirits Competition!

The name is derived from a mountain in the Hemsedal area (he distillery is in Grimstad) but their web site claims that they have been inspired a mythical figure – which looks alike a hare with horns. You can see the picture on the bottle label. As an aside, the word “harahorn” seems almost like the two English words – “hare” and horn” have been put together. Is Norwegian that close to English? I understand all SAS flights serve this gin.

Slightly more potent than standard gin at 46% ABV, this gin has the unique influence of blueberries. Other than the blueberries, it has juniper, of course, and rhubarb, angelica, wild marjoram, orange and bladderwrack (had no idea what this is till I looked it up; pretty interesting medicinal qualities; look it up).

The nose is predominantly juniper and citrusy. The palette is decidedly mellower than most gins. The sweetness of blueberries do a good job of softening the edges of the bitterness in juniper.

I will try some cocktails later with this. Corpse Reviver #2 is top of my list.

This cocktail was built up by Food and Wine magazine contributor Ryan Fitzgerald. Apparently, he was inspired by the taste of apple with peanut butter. I recreated the drink almost exactly the same way – except instead of almond syrup (Ryan used it to get close to the peanut butter), I used a dash of almond butter. The rest of the ingredients are gin, dry vermouth, apple brandy, apple juice and bitters.

Champagne and orange (mimosa) and Champagne with pink grapefruit juice.

Negroni made with Roku gin, sweet vermouth and Campari.

After the really tasty Gunpowder Gin from Ireland, made a swing to the other end of the world – Japan – to continue with the “tea” theme. Roku Gin – made in the Suntory distillery right outside Osaka – is a rather recent introduction to the international market. Meaning, it has been made available just this year.

My first reaction was marveling at the bottle. This is a very beautiful bottle which is hexagon in shape. The relevance of the hexagon shape was completely lost on me till I learnt what “Roku” means in Japanese. It means “six”.

In keeping with that theme of “six”, Roku gin has six strong local influences in the herbs and botanicals that defines the gin – two types of team – sencha (green tea) and gyokuro (refined green tea), two local cherry influences – the sakura blossoms and sakura leaves as well as sanshō pepper, and yuzu. This is on top of the eight herbals that are fairly standard in all gins: juniper, coriander, angelica root, angelica seed, cardamom seeds, cinnamon, bitter orange peel and lemon peel.

The starting point is a neutral grain spirit, but the distinctive feature of the production process is that the different herbals are taken thru different distillation processes e.g. vacuum distillation, vapor distillation and the standard distillation in copper stills.

I did not try the gin neat today. I had it with some tonic water. First off, the flowery nose can be immediately sensed as you start sipping. The palette was a more on the tighter and bitter side (the gin itself has some tones of bitterness and then the quinine adds to that). The tea makes it presence felt rather quickly. It leaves a creamy or buttery sense as it leaves the mouth. The finish clearly had the strong markings of juniper and citrus.

I am not sure pure tonic water is the best way to take this gin. Further research points to suggestions that a little ginger makes the G&T far better. I will try that tomorrow.