Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Food & Drink

Hendrick’s: The Gin for the Flavor Connoisseur

Shandana A. Durrani
By

hendricks the gin for flavor connoisseur hendrick s juniper berries
It’s enough to get people in a tizzy. The argument over who makes the world’s best gin. After all, this is not flavorless vodka we are talking about. Maybe you’d get an angry retort from a Moscovite for saying such a thing. But gin is a connoisseur’s spirit. From artisanal brands to old mainstays, the colorless liquid has a rabid following among liquor aficionados. But with so many bad, cheap gins on the market, how is one to choose the best for dirty martinis or more fanciful concoctions? Mainstays such as Tanqueray and Bombay have a lead in market share but Scottish brand, Hendrick’s, with its unique flavor profile, has become one of the top choices for the more discerning gin drinker.

It all starts at the distillery in Girvan, Scotland. The small town on the country’s southwest coast is known for windswept fields of green as well as for Glenfiddich whiskey. While the whiskey distillery is massive and employs a large number of people, the botanical-rich Hendrick’s is crafted by master distiller Lesley Gracie at the site of a former munitions factory. Since 1999, Gracie has been creating the unique gin in small batches via two stills: a Carter-Head and a Bennett. Like twin siblings, the stills have to work in tandem. The Carter-Head bathes the botanicals while the Bennett boils them. Gracie sources only the finest botanicals from around Europe.

Related Videos

Hendrick’s is the only gin on the market that uses 11 different botanicals in its creation. There’s the requisite juniper berries as well as earthy coriander, angelica and orris root, lemon peel, chamomile, cubeb berries, orange peel, yarrow, carroway seeds and elderflower. Cucumber essence and rose oil are added to the finished product. The roots and seeds are kept in compact, wooden boxes near the distillery entrance. Sinking your hands into the various botanicals is a treat for four of the five senses. The fifth sense gets its due with each sip of the finished product.

Related

Most gin aficionados love their gin martinis but I am partial to the English Garden. Perfect for the lazy days of late summer.

English Garden

one shot Hendrick’s Gin

splash of lime juice

splash of St. Germain

top off with pressed apple juice

pour over ice and garnish with cucumber slices

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
The best kegerators for keeping your favorite beers cold and fresh
Fresh beer is better beer. Now, you can have cold draft beer at home or on the go with your own personal beer keg setup.
best kegerator on amazon

There's a wide selection of iconic craft beers and tasty cheap beers available to drink in cans and bottles. But nothing beats a good, heady draft pint served right from a tap or kegerator. As the name implies, a kegerator is a refrigerator that keeps a keg of beer cold and fresh while allowing you to dispense the contents from a built-in pressurized tap system on top.

However, it is a costly appliance, so it’s recommended to do your homework and invest your hard-earned money in a top-notch quality unit that will surely keep your beer fresh. To help you save time on researching the best ones, we’ve rounded up our picks for the best kegerators of 2023, with our selections ranging from on-the-go options to the most innovative dual-tap kegerators.

Read more
The Borg drink is a viral Gen-Z favorite that’s really not all that new
Sorry, kiddos. "Borg" has been around for a while. We just call it something else.
borg drink recipe

Every new generation thinks they've invented the wheel when it comes to anything trendy. We're sorry to say, Gen-Z, but "flared leggings" are called yoga pants, most of us were using flip phones before you were born, and don't even think about talking to us about pop punk unless you know who Billie Joe Armstrong is.
When it comes to drinks, most generations have a hallmark party beverage that defines their college years, holding the power to flood them with a rush of nausea and fuzzy memories even decades later. For Gen-Z, that drink is called "Borg." What they haven't realized yet, though, is that this falsely fruity concoction has been around for years under the name "Jungle Juice."
While Jungle Juice was originally invented by U.S. soldiers during the Second World War, it was Millenials who made it the truly trashy, hangover-inducing party swill it is. Most stereotypically mixed in a large bucket or something else that can be found in a dorm garage, Jungle Juice is a mixture of vodka and a cheap, fruity mixer such as Kool-Aid. Naturally, there aren't any hard and fast recipe rules, but that's the usual gist of Jungle Juice.
The Gen-Z twist, Borg, does have some clever upgrades, and for that, we give them due credit. Firstly, the rather gross-sounding name is actually a witty acronym for "Black Out Rage Gallon." We love that there's no beating around the bush with this generation. They know how to call a spade a spade. Second, unlike the communal trough that's used to dole out Jungle Juice, Borg is made and served in individual plastic jugs, cutting down on germ spread. We can appreciate that growing up in the days of COVID has made for some much healthier thinking. We also love that Borg can be capped, making it much more difficult for potential predators to tamper with a drink.
Of course, the optional addition of new ingredients like Liquid IV also help to curb the hangover that will undoubtedly come with drinking vodka from a plastic jug. That sure would have been nice back in the day.

Borg drink recipe

Read more
Is erythritol harmful? What a dietitian says new data means for your Keto diet
Erythritol is common in many keto foods - what does that mean for your health?
erythritol in keto diet advice

While sugar substitutes have been around for more than a century, they didn't really become mainstream here in the United States until around the mid-70s. According to Carolyn De La Pena, professor of American Studies at UC Davis and author of Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda, between 1975 and 1984, Americans increased their consumption of artificial sweeteners by 150 percent. This timeline makes sense when you take into account that the late seventies coincided with the start of our crazed diet culture and the revolving door of fad diets.
One such diet that doesn't seem to be going anywhere, however, is the Keto diet. Still hugely popular among Americans trying to shed a few pounds, Keto focuses heavily on limited or no carbohydrates. Because sugar contains carbohydrates, followers of Keto have turned to artificial sweeteners to satisfy those late-night cravings - sweeteners that, more often than not, contain erythritol. Erythritol in particular has become hugely popular because it's much better for baking than other sugar substitutes, has less of an artificial flavor, and will keep the eater in Ketosis, which is key for losing weight on the Keto diet.
A new study has made waves recently because its findings indicate there's a link between erythritol and higher rates of heart attack and stroke (though the study did note that only an association was found — not causation. So should you be worried?
We asked Dan LeMoine, RD, the award-winning author of Fear No Food and the Clinical Director at Phoenix-based Re:vitalize Nutrition, what he had to say about erythritol, including its benefits and potential health risks. "Artificial sweeteners are still sweeteners. While many are non-nutritive or zero-calorie, we tend to view them similarly as we do regular sweeteners or sugars — moderation is key. While many have amazing implications on weight loss – being low to no-calorie options and having little impact on blood sugar, some have their downside," he says.

While some of that sugar substitution has been good for waistlines and health issues that come from obesity, it seems to be causing more and more concern when it comes to other potential health issues. "For example," says LeMoine, "some research indicates the popular sweeteners stevia may have negative effects on the gut microbiome. And the recent study showing correlation between the sugar alcohol, erythritol, and heart attack and stroke."

Read more