Hendrick's Gin (700 ml)

Hendrick's was born in 1999 from a deliberate act of rule-breaking: William Grant & Sons installed two antique stills at their Girvan complex — a Bennett copper pot still and a Carter-Head still — and ran them separately before blending the distillates, a dual-distillation architecture almost unheard of in gin production. The Bennett imparts heavy, oily botanical extraction; the Carter-Head, with its vapour-infusion basket, delivers delicate floral lift. Girvan sits on the Ayrshire coast of southwest Scotland, where cool Atlantic air and soft, low-mineral water from the estate's own source shape a spirit of unusual textural lightness. Eleven botanicals are macerated and distilled across the two stills, then the finished blend receives a post-distillation infusion of Rosa damascena rose petals sourced from Bulgaria and fresh cucumber essence — added cold, after distillation, to preserve their volatile aromatic compounds rather than cook them off. Bottled at 41.4% ABV, non-chill-filtered. What no peer replicates is the cold-addition of rose and cucumber as a finishing step rather than a still botanical, producing a floral-vegetal register that sits entirely outside the London Dry canon. The result is a gin that reads as simultaneously aromatic and savoury, with the cucumber providing a green, watery freshness that lengthens the finish.