Saint Amans Rose Pink Gin

The colour comes from the fruit, not from anything added afterwards, and that fact shapes everything else about the bottle. Saint Amans assembles eighteen botanicals on a base of French grape spirit, which is an ambitious way to build a pink bottling. Real raspberries go into the recipe alongside rose, lavender and the Toulouse violet at 38% ABV, with juniper, thyme, angelica, ginger, coriander, cinnamon, iris, citrus, almond, hazelnut, goji berry and a touch of Espelette pepper filling out the rest.

Dry · Floral · Fruity · Herbal

Raspberry leads and reads as fresh fruit, tart at the edge rather than jammy, and that tartness is what keeps a pink ginPink ginToday, a gin flavoured and tinted pink (red fruit, rhubarb…). Originally, plain gin with a few dashes of Angostura bitters.Glossary from sliding into liqueur territory. The floral trio sits directly behind it and each contributes something different: rose deep and slightly jammy, lavender cooler and more aromatic, Toulouse violet powdery and delicate in a way that violet rarely manages without turning to confectionery. Underneath, thyme and juniper supply a dry herbal frame, almond and hazelnut give a soft nutty roundness, and Espelette pepper adds a warm prickle right at the end that most drinkers will feel before they identify. The grape base contributes body and a vinous softness that a grain spirit would not have given. The palate is floral and fruity but finishes properly dry.

At 38% it is built for aperitif drinking. A plain tonic keeps the florals legible; a flavoured one simply adds a fruit the recipe does not need. Fill the glass right up with ice before pouring, and finish with a single fresh raspberry or a twist of lemonTwistA strip of peel twisted over the glass to release its oils, then dropped into the drink.Glossary, never both. It also makes an elegant spritz alongside a dry sparkling wine, a build in which the low strength stops being a limitation at all. Eighteen botanicals rarely stay this legible. It ends floral, dry and faintly warm.