With its pronounced botanical profile, gin has among the greatest potential of all spirit categories to evoke a sense of place. Yet most gins rely on dried, imported ingredients and, flavorwise, many fall into just a few standard camps, such as London dry or the more citrus-forward New World or New Age style. Within this latter group, West Coast gin, a catchall category that eludes strict definition and encompasses a widening array of flavor profiles, has become an exciting playground for bartenders.
Though West Coast gin doesn’t have a strict definition, bottlings in this category tend to share a few characteristics: a striking botanical profile that strays far from traditional London dry, an emphasis on non-juniper ingredients and an unapologetic identification with their place of origin. Lance Winters, master distiller at St. George Spirits in Alameda, California, kicked off the movement with the release of Terroir Gin in 2011—though it wasn’t really his intention to be a pioneer. Drawing on his sense memories of hiking around Mount Tamalpais, he initially didn’t create Terroir as a gin at all. “When I first conceptualized it, it didn’t have any juniper: The whole idea was expressing a sense of place through distillation,” Winters explains. But at the suggestion of his wife, Ellie, he added the botanical to a recipe that includes several ingredients from the Bay Area, like coastal sage and bay laurel. He also uses more traditional gin botanicals like orris root and angelica—chosen for their ability to evoke decaying leaves on a forest floor—and cinnamon, dry-roasted in a wok to bring out the distinct aromas of the dry chaparral landscape.
Although local ingredients play an integral part, imported botanicals are necessary to achieve Terroir’s specific sensory aims; other West Coast gins, like Los Angeles–based brands Amass and Greenbar along with Sebastopol’s Spirit Works, also source both close to home and farther afield.
Other West Coast gins, meanwhile, focus exclusively on local ingredients. Gray Whale Gin incorporates six botanicals, all foraged from or farmed within California, including Temecula limes, almonds from the Central Valley and juniper from Big Sur.
“It was never our intention to create yet another London dry. We already have a plethora of choices on that front,” says Gray Whale co-founder Marsh Mokhtari. Instead, the gin’s botanicals draw inspiration from the migratory path of the eponymous cetacean. Mokhtari calls it “a taste of the Pacific Coast in a glass.”
North of California, craft distilleries draw inspiration from a different landscape. Freeland Spirits in Portland, Oregon, makes several gins using local botanicals, including Forest Gin. The unusual recipe, which includes chanterelles, salal berries and nettles, aims to transport the drinker to the cool Oregon woodlands. Making Forest Gin was a challenge, according to Freeland master distiller Molly Troupe. “I had an idea on what this recipe would taste like, but as I was putting it together, pipette by pipette, it revealed a completely different personality,” she says, describing the bright gin as “truly a walk through the woods on a bright, dewy morning.”
Because of the category’s panoply of flavors and aromas, West Coast gin can sometimes be challenging in traditional cocktails. Swapping one for a London dry might require a little rejiggering of ratios. An initial neat pour should point drinkers in the right general direction. Of course, the lazy option works fine too: Pretty much all of these are well-matched with tonic or simply a splash of soda.
Above all, keeping an open mind is paramount. “I recommend throwing away your expectations,” Winters says. “Imagine that you’ve just discovered a new color and you’re trying to paint with it. Figure out what fits.”
