Year: 2024

A look at this piney, crisp spirit

Plus a preview of the Distiller’s Showcase

Dan Haggerty, co-owner of craft cocktail bar Industry East in Manchester, is a huge fan of gin.

“Gin is awesome,” he said. “Vodka’s main use is becoming gin.” He explained that gin begins its life as a neutral spirit — essentially vodka — before being flavored with botanical flavors: juniper berries, spices like coriander, or other, more exotic roots, stems or seeds.

“Every gin is different,” he said, ”and there are so many, so they’re fun to play with. If you’re looking for something a little bit more on the floral side, you can do that. If you want something more on the vegetal side, you can go with a gin like that. A lot of people say, ‘I don’t like gin.’ We actually had a drink on our menu that was called But I Don’t Like Gin. And it was always our goal to convince people. We’d say, ‘Hey, try this,’” Haggerty said that was a quick way to make gin skeptics into converts.

“Cocktail bartenders love gin,” said Jillian Bernat, the Bar Manager of Greenleaf in Milford. “I don’t know if I can pinpoint [why]. I just know that vodka has never done it for me. And they say that gin is the original flavored vodka. So it’s just got a little bit more substance to it and more depth. And it’s just easy. It mixes well with a ton of things.”

Bernat said that while gin has a reputation as an older person’s drink, her experience has been that gin people can be surprising: “It ranges from freshly 21-year-olds to the older crowd that just likes a basic gin martini or gin and tonic.”

Brian Ferguson makes gin. He is the owner and head distiller at Flag Hill Distillery in Lee. He has seen a sea change in the gin world that has attracted new gin drinkers.

“[Maybe 20 years ago] most gin was what was … what is referred to as London Dry,” Ferguson said. “And London Dry gin is to gin as double IPA is to beer. It’s like the most intense, over-the-top version of the category. So up until somewhat recently if you had gin it was this really, really intense version. The way I describe it is, imagine if your first beer was a 90 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head and that was your first introduction to beer. You’d probably think that beer was gross, right? Most people don’t get to where they like 90 Minute Dogfish Head by just having that as their first drink of beer. So that’s kind of what most people’s experience has been with gin up until recently. And then … I don’t know exactly when, but around maybe somewhere between 2000 and 2010, a lot of craft distilleries started producing this kind of like new age style gin. And they’re very botanical focused.”

Unlike most distillers, Flag Hill doesn’t start with a grain spirit. “We start with a base of apples,” Ferguson said. “It’s made from apples from Apple Hill Farm [in Concord], and those apples wind up getting distilled to almost neutral, not quite neutral.” While the apple spirit doesn’t actually taste of apples, it retains a high percentage of malic acid, a natural chemical in apples that gives them a crisp, dry quality. That malic acid gets partially converted into a compound that is responsible for the flavor of butter. “So we’re able to make this kind of buttery finish,” Ferguson said, “I [describe it] like candy butter on the back of the tongue, that’s so different from normal gin.”

Christopher Burk, the owner of Cathedral Ledge Distillery in North Conway, relies on a grain spirit to build his gin from. “We are a true grain-to-glass distillery,” Burk said. “One hundred percent of our products start with us milling grain and fermenting, distilling, working it all the way through the process. Our vodka, which becomes the base for our gin, is 45 percent wheat, 45 percent corn, 10 percent malted barley. All of our products, I should say, are certified USDA organic. They’re also all certified as gluten-free.”

For Burk, one of the attractions of making gin is the latitude it gives him for creativity.

“Gin is basically a blank palette,” he said.

“When my wife [Cathedral Ledge co-owner Tracy Burk] and I wanted to develop our gin recipe, we gathered scores of botanicals from around the world,” he recalled. “We started with store-bought vodka and jelly jars with botanicals and carefully measured proportions. When we wanted a cocktail at dinnertime, we would get out our pipettes and our notebook, and it was ‘three drops of this’ and ‘two of that’ and ‘one of those’ and ‘Oh, God, that’s wretched! Write it down, never do that again!’”

Burk is especially proud of their barrel-rested gin. “It’s entirely different from our other gin,” he said. “There’s overlapping ingredients, but in different proportions. So it [has] juniper, coriander and citrus peel, like all London Dries. It has hawthorn berry in there as a mid-palate focus — it’s a wonderful botanical, a neat plant to work with. It’s the real secret sauce to Barrel Rested. When the gin comes off the still, it’s an incomplete product — kind of flabby, like an unseasoned piece of protein coming out of the oven. We put it into a recently emptied rye whiskey barrel.It gets some spice from the rye, it gets caramel and vanilla from the wood, and it just makes a wonderful, wonderful gin. I consider it a sipping gin. I’ve had it in a gin and tonic, and it’s wonderful, but it’s a gin you can make a martini out of.”

Flag Hill owner Brian Ferguson summed up the state of gin today. “If you are somebody who has tried gin in the past and didn’t love it, try gin from a craft distillery,” he suggested. “Hopefully it’s ours, but even if it’s any other craft distillery, they’re all making these really exciting new gins. “There’s just so much more complexity and depth to craft distilled gins than there are to a lot of the big brand gins.”

Mentioned here
Industry East Bar 28 Hanover St., Manchester, 232-6940, industryeastbar.com
Cathedral Ledge Distillery 3340 White Mountain Highway, North Conway, 730-5696, cathedralledgedistillery.com
Apple Hill Farm 580 Mountain Road, Concord, 224-8862, applehillfarmnh.com
Flag Hill Distillery 297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com
Greenleaf 54 Nashua St., Milford, 213-5447, greenleafmilford.com

Types of Gin

All gin starts as a neutral spirit — think vodka — that is usually made from grain but sometimes made from other ingredients. Barr Hill, for instance, distills its base alcohol from honey. After that, botanical flavors are added. One of them is always juniper, which gives gin its distinctive piney flavor, but other herbs, spices and roots can range from rhubarb to lavender to coriander. The finished product might be aged or treated in other ways before making its way into your glass. There is a great variety of gins, but they generally break down into three broad categories that you are likely to find in New Hampshire liquor stores:

London Dry Gin: This is the type of gin that most people think of when they hear the term “gin.” It is crisp and piney, with some citrus back-notes and an alcoholic kick. Your first gin and tonic was probably made with it. It is also perfect for a classic martini. Varieties include Gordon’s, Bombay Sapphire and Tanqueray.

Old Tom Gin: This gin has been played with a bit. It might be slightly sweetened, or barrel-aged. These are often sipped neat or on the rocks, or substituted for whiskey in alcohol-forward drinks like old-fashioneds. Barr Hill’s Tom Cat, Cathedral Ledge’s Barrel-Aged Gin, and Hayman’s of London are good examples of this type.

Botanical Gins: Sometimes referred to as American-style gins, these put their botanical flavors in the driver’s seat. There will still be notes of juniper and the base alcohol, but floral or spicy or herby flavors will be prominent. Hendrick’s is especially well known for its botanical gins, but Uncle Val’s, Creative Arts, and Grey Whale are examples of botanicals. They also make extremely good gin and tonics, where their flavors can shine through cleanly but are also strong team players in creative craft bar cocktails.

Gin Cocktails

A Classic Dry Martini

• 2 to 3 ounces London Dry gin
• An ounce or so of dry vermouth

Before starting, wet a stemmed martini glass, and either fill it with crushed ice, or put it in the freezer to chill.

Fill a mixing glass with ice, and pour the vermouth over it. Stir it with a cocktail spoon for 10 or 20 seconds, completely coating the ice with vermouth, then strain the ice to remove any vermouth left in the mixing glass. There will still be a fine, almost imperceptible coating of vermouth on the ice and the sides of the mixing glass.

Add the gin to the mixing glass and stir it gently, until it is thoroughly chilled.

Retrieve your martini glass from the freezer, or dump out the crushed ice, and strain your cold martini into it.

The classic garnish for a martini is a large olive, speared with a cocktail toothpick. A martini garnished with a cocktail onion is called a Gibson. One with a splash of olive brine is called a dirty martini. And, somewhat surprisingly, a “perfect” martini is made with equal parts gin and vermouth.

The attraction of a properly made martini is its simplicity. It is blisteringly cold and has a clean, pure flavor that makes the drinker pay very close attention to the gin.

Aviation

Recommended by Eric Avard, Bartender at Stashbox (866 Elm St., Manchester, 606-8109, stashboxnh.com)

This classic from the very early 1900s has been making a resurgence in recent years.

• 2 ounces gin – traditionally, this would be a London Dry gin, but many craft bartenders swear by something more botanical; Uncle Val’s would be delightful
• ½ ounce maraschino liqueur
• ¼ ounce creme de violette – a floral, purple liqueur that adds color and sophistication; use this sparingly
• ¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice

Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker, and shake until thoroughly chilled; your fingers should hurt from the cold, and you should hear the ice starting to break up inside the shaker.

Strain into a stemmed glass — a coupe, perhaps, or a “Nick and Nora.” Garnish with a brandied cherry.

This is one of the prettiest cocktails you are likely to order in a bar. The maraschino brings a bitter-sweet quality that plays off the acidity of the lemon juice and the flowery hints of the creme de violette. The gin provides the backbone.

Bee’s Knees

Recommended by Jeff Cole of Barr Hill Distillery

This Prohibition-era cocktail comes from a time when gin, legal or not, was the most abundant liquor available in the U.S.

• 2 ounces gin – made with honey, Barr Hill’s Tom Cat might be perfect for this
• ¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
• ¾ ounce honey syrup – 2 parts honey to one part hot water; let it cool before using

Combine the gin, lemon juice and honey syrup with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake ruthlessly, then strain into a chilled, stemmed glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

This is one of those cocktails where there is nowhere to hide. Use a honey you like, because it will shine through. Use a gin you like, because it will be in your face. Squeeze your own lemon juice; the stuff in the plastic bottle is fine for some recipes — cupcake frosting, for instance — but if you use it in a cocktail, you might as well be adding powdered lemonade mix.

French 75

Recommended by Christopher Burk, co-owner of Cathedral Ledge Distillery (3340 White Mountain Highway, North Conway, 730-5696, cathedralledgedistillery.com)

• 1 ounce gin – not surprisingly, Chris Burk recommends Cathedral Ledge Barrel-Rested Gin
• ¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1 ounce simple syrup
• 3 ounces Champagne

Combine the gin, lemon juice and simple syrup with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake thoroughly.

Strain it into a Champagne flute and top it with Champagne.

Without the sparkling wine, this is called a Gin Sour and is also delicious. The Champagne adds a dryness and subtlety to the finished drink.

Negroni

Recommended by Brian Ferguson, owner of Flag Hill Winery and Distillery (297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com)

This is a classic cocktail for gin lovers who like something a little less sweet.

• 1 ounce gin
• 1 ounce sweet vermouth
• 1 ounce Campari – a bright red, bitter Italian liqueur

Fill a rocks glass with ice, then add the gin, vermouth and Campari. Stir gently until combined. Garnish with an orange twist.

This classic is alcohol-forward, bright red, and bittersweet, perhaps a little more bitter than sweet.

Queen Bee

Invented and recommended by bartender Sian Quinn at 815 Cocktails & Provisions (815 Elm St., Manchester, 782-8086, 815nh.com)

• 2 ounces gin, fat-washed with brown butter – OK, we’re already going down a rabbit hole. When alcohol is exposed to a flavorful fat, like bacon fat, or brown butter, the flavor elements in the fat can get confused and leave the fat for a new home in the alcohol. In this case, the recommended method of “fat-washing” the butter is to brown it, then mix it with an equal amount of gin. Cover it and let it rest for five or six hours, then freeze it, and remove the plug of butter from the top of the container. Strain the gin into a new container, and keep it refrigerated until use. Alternatively, use 2 ounces of barrel-rested gin.
• half of a peach, fresh if possible, canned if necessary
• 1 ounce cinnamon-infused honey syrup – bring equal parts honey and water and several cinnamon sticks to a boil, remove from heat, and steep for half an hour
• ¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice.
• A Biscoff cookie

Muddle the peach in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. This is bartender speak for smooshing it up with a stick. Add the gin, then dry-shake the mixture; this means “without ice.” The alcohol in the gin will help strip peach flavors from the fruit before it is diluted with other ingredients.

Add the lemon juice and cinnamon-honey syrup, with ice, to the shaker, and shake thoroughly. Set it aside briefly.

Crush the cookie until it is mostly dust. Spread it out on a small plate. Wet the rim of a cocktail glass, then dip it into the cookie dust. Flip the glass right-side-up, and strain your cocktail into it.

As you might expect, this is a complex drinking experience. The honey and gin play the starring roles, but with a warm-tasting-cold-drinking, buttery, cinnamony flavor.

I Should Call Her

Invented and recommended by Tristan George, bar manager at Industry East (28 Hanover St., Manchester, 232-6940, industryeastbar.com)

This is a very, very delicious cocktail with a name that hints at the kind of bad decisions you might make after too many of these.

• 2 ounces floral gin – Hendrick’s would be a good choice
• 1/2 ounce creme de violette
• ¾ ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
• ¾ ounce orgeat – a red, almondy syrup
• An egg white
• 5 to 10 drops habanero tincture – blend 4 or 5 habanero peppers with a cup of high-proof vodka, until thoroughly pulverized. Let it sit overnight to let the alcohol pick up the flavor and heat from the peppers, then strain twice, once through the finest-mesh strainer you have, then again through a coffee filter. Be patient; this will probably take longer than you think.
• 5 to 10 drops Peychaud bitters

Add all the ingredients except the bitters to a cocktail shaker, and dry shake it, without ice, for at least 30 seconds. This will give the egg white long enough to fluff up and add texture to the drink. Once everything is thoroughly mixed, add ice, and shake again to chill it.

Strain the cocktail into a coupe glass, then dot the foamy surface with bitters.

This is a stunningly good cocktail where the individual ingredients do NOT present themselves. It is a sweet, floral, juicy drink, with a little heat on the back end. Not for nothing, it is also a beautiful, pale lavender color.

Pink Gin

Reformulated and recommended by Tom Lloyd, bartender at What The Pho! (836 Elm St., Manchester, 606-8769, whatthephorestaurant.com)

For decades Pink Gin was a classic staple in British India and other hot colonial outposts. It was almost always gin over ice, with bitters. This grapefruit-forward conception is less colonial and much more refreshing. It does, however, have gin, and it is pink.

• 1½ ounces gin
• ¼ ounce elderberry liqueur
• ¼ ounce pamplemousse, a grapefruit-flavored liqueur
• 2 ounces ruby red grapefruit juice
• The juice of half a lime
• One dash of orange bitters
• 1 ounce seltzer

Combine all ingredients except the seltzer with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake thoroughly, then strain into a rocks glass. Top with seltzer and stir gently.

This is the juiciest-tasting cocktail that you are ever likely to drink. The sourness of the grapefruit and lime juices have a mouth-watering quality, the elderflower liqueur provides a floral note, and the gin sits in the back, arms proudly folded over its chest, saying, “I told you so.”

Elderflower Cosmopolitan

Recommended by Nikki Miller, head bartender at the Barley House Restaurant and Tavern (132 N. Main St., Concord, 228-6363, thebarleyhouse.com)

Cosmopolitans have traditionally been made with vodka, but in this version, the gin stands out and gives depth to the cocktail. Miller said, “Gin is a very botanical liquor, with juniper berries and few roots. Sometimes it tastes like nutmeg or lemon. This drink is just a chef’s kiss of a cocktail. It’s a really good one.”

• 2 ounces botanical gin – Hendrick’s would be good for this
• ½ ounce elderflower liqueur
• ½ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1 ounce cranberry juice cocktail
• Champagne to top – about one ounce

Combine the gin, elderflower liqueur and lemon juice with ice in a cocktail shaker, and shake until chilled. Strain into a cocktail glass, and top with Champagne.

This is a slightly less sweet, more American take on a French 75. It is slightly sweet from the elderflower liqueur, slightly sour from the lemon juice, and just a bit effervescent from the champagne. It is super-refreshing.

Tea and Lemons

Developed and recommended by Jillian Bernat, bar manager at Greenleaf (54 Nashua St., Milford, 213-5447, greenleafmilford.com)

• 2 ounces tea-infused botanical gin – Bernat suggests steeping a spoonful of high-quality loose-leaf black tea for 10 minutes or so, then straining it
• ¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1 ounce simple syrup
• ½ ounce Benedictine

Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker, shake soundly, and strain into a chilled martini glass.

This has all the basic flavors of an Arnold Palmer, but condensed into a classier, more adult beverage.

Olives
According to Bartender Jeremy Weatherby of Piccola Italia Ristorante (815 Elm St, Manchester, 606-5100, piccolarestaurant.com), how many olives you get in your martini is significant.
“Olives in a martini should always come in odd numbers,” he said. “Serving one with an even number is considered disrespectful; it’s a sign that the bartender doesn’t like you.”

New Hampshire Distiller’s Showcase

New Hampshire’s 11th Annual Distiller’s Showcase will be held Thursday, Nov. 7.

Distillers and distributors will show off more than 600 premium and ultra-premium alcohols from around the world. Mark Roy, the Director of Marketing, Merchandising, and Warehousing for the New Hampshire Liquor Commission, has been part of the yearly Showcase since the beginning. He said it is the climax of a week of events.

“We’ll have some in-store bottle signings and tastings with some of the VIPs and distillers and brand ambassadors coming in,” he said. “We’ll also be hosting a Wednesday evening event at the Manchester Country Club in Bedford. It’s a showcase where people can come in to a more intimate venue and they can go around and … talk to brand ambassadors or people from the [liquor] companies directly.”

Roy said the focus this year will be on premium ready-to-drink cocktails, “which is one of the fastest-growing categories in the country right now.”

“[I]t’s an evening where people can come together. We have our high-end Penn Stock room, which is the old restaurant located within the hotel where we have some select products and people in there showcasing their wares. Inside the main expo itself we have over 600 different spirits from every category that you can name, again with some VIP distillers and brand ambassadors coming in. We also partner with some of the best restaurants throughout New Hampshire. There are 25 different restaurants that will be there offering out samples throughout the evening,” Roy said.

In spite of the liquor bigwigs on site, Roy said, the Showcase is designed so ordinary drinkers can learn more about the choices of alcohol available in the state and introduce themselves to new drinks.

“The target audience is our consumer,” he said. “We have every category represented from vodkas to cream liqueurs to tequilas to high-end scotches and everything in between.”

Jillian Anderson is the Director of Tamworth Distilling (15 Cleveland Hill Road, Tamworth, 323-7196, tamworthdistilling.com).

“The Distiller’s Showcase is one of our favorite events to attend every year,” Anderson said. “We find it really brings a focus on all the different people who are really into spirits, who have been kind of following trends, and also people who are very new to the world of spirits and are excited to try a bunch of new things.”

Two of those new things are Tamworth products that focus on local ingredients.

“At one of our tables,” she said, “we will be representing our eight-year-old Chocorua straight rye whiskey, which is [made from] 100 percent rye that’s all grown on a local farm in Maine. We have a black trumpet mushroom and blueberry cordial, which showcases black trumpet mushrooms that are locally foraged right in Tamworth by the New Hampshire Mushroom Co. (153 Gardner Hill Road, Tamworth, 323-0097, nhmushrooms.com). I actually learned something very interesting recently, which is black trumpet mushrooms are one of the only mushrooms that can’t be grown. They have to be foraged. So it’s something about the way that they grow in a tree that you can’t actually try and farm them.”

Anderson is excited to introduce people at the Showcase to Tamworth Distilling’s products, and part of that is the packaging.

“The labels are quite creative,” she said. “We pride ourselves on creating interesting, fun, boundary-pushing spirits, but the packaging always has a story to tell about any of the Tamworth distilling products also.” She used her company’s Siege of Wolves rum as an example. “The Siege of Wolves Is actually an event that happened in Tamworth in the 1800s,” she said. “The story goes that the farmers went out and took on the wolves in the middle of the night because they were eating all of their livestock. And when they succeeded in scaring the wolves off, they celebrated with a barrel of rum.”

For Chris Burk, owner of Cathedral Ledge Distillery (3340 White Mountain Hwy., North Conway, 730-5696, cathedralledgedistillery.com), the Distiller’s Showcase is an opportunity to meet customers and shift his perspective. “It’s a great chance for me to get away from the still,” he said, “and get out, meet customers and answer their questions.Their questions are all over the place. It’s a pretty savvy group, generally speaking. They know quite a bit about spirits, and some of them want to get really into some details about the grains in our whiskeys or our aging procedures. It could be the botanicals in our gins. They are there to learn, which is why it’s such a great event. It’s a great way for customers to explore and be able to learn and try a bunch of things without having to make a full-bottle commitment.”

The proceeds from the Distiller’s Showcase will benefit the New Hampshire Food Bank.

“This is their biggest fundraiser throughout the year,” Mark Roy said. “They provide critical service to many of the local soup kitchens and food banks throughout the state for people that have food insufficiencies. We also have the Crown Royal Bags for Our Troops program, so when people are waiting in line queuing up to go into the event they can help pack some of the bags and these bags get sent over to our troops.” —John Fladd

NH Distiller’s Showcase
When: Thursday, Nov. 7, from 6 to 8:30 p.m.
Where: Doubletree Expo Center, 700 Elm St., Manchester
Tickets: $75 through distillersshowcase.com. Food and nonalcoholic beverages will be available. The Showcase has partnered with Brown Forman and Grace Limousine to offer free rides home to guests who live within 20 miles of the event. The event’s organizers encourage guests to drink responsibly.