Samsara Contemporary Indian Gin

Hemp seeds and vetiver grass are not standard gin botanicals, and they are what sets this bottle apart from the eleven-plant crowd. Hemp seed is nutty and faintly green, closer to a toasted kernel than to anything herbal. Vetiver is a root, deep and earthy with a cool, almost damp aroma that Indian summers have used as a fragrance for centuries, in screens and mats hung at windows to cool the air.

Dry · Spicy · Fruity · Herbal

Around those two sit more familiar voices. Rose petals bring a soft floral layer, green cardamom a bright eucalyptus-and-citrus warmth that is the single most recognisable Indian spice in a glass, and juniper underpins the lot. The arrangement is unusual: the hemp and the vetiver sit low and dry, the rose and the cardamom sit high and aromatic, and juniper is left to hold the middle almost alone. Eleven botanicals are hand-picked in all, with local plants deliberately preferred, and the distillation follows the London DryLondon DryA style, not a place of origin: every flavour comes from distilling natural botanicals. After distillation only water and a trace of sugar may be added, with no flavouring or colouring.GlossarySee London Dry gins method even though the bottle is labelled simply as a distilled ginDistilled ginGin made by redistilling neutral spirit with juniper and other botanicals. Unlike London Dry, flavourings may be added after distillation.GlossarySee Distilled gin gins.

Two details sit outside the liquid and are worth knowing anyway: the packaging is organic, and the gin is produced in a women-centric facility. Both belong to how the gin is made rather than to how it tastes. Bottled at 42.8% in 750 ml, the strength gives the earthier botanicals room without letting the rose turn perfumed, which is the main risk in any gin built on a flower.

An Indian tonicIndian tonicThe classic tonic: sparkling water, bitter quinine and sugar. The name recalls colonial India, where quinine warded off malaria.Glossary is the obvious partner and the right one. Serve 4 cl lengthened with 10 cl of it over a generous amount of hard ice, plus a few rose petals and two or three green cardamom pods. Cold throughout, two seconds of mixing. Crack the pods lightly before they go in, just enough to open them: whole, they do nothing, and crushed, the cardamom takes over the drink.