It took a while, but creaky old gin has caught up to vodka in at least one fashionable regard: sky-high pricing.
A product humbly called No. 209, made in a warehouse on Pier 50 in San Francisco, hit the shelves in Ontario last month at $59.95, a record for the category. That's almost 50 per cent higher than existing superpremium brands Tanqueray No. Ten and Hendrick's, both launched years ago and just under $41.
It's also considerably more expensive than Grey Goose, the wildly successful vodka that laid the golden egg for luxury white spirits back in the 1990s. Grey Goose sells for $43.95 in Ontario.
But it's possible No. 209 will raise eyebrows among traditional gin devotees for an entirely different reason: its flavour.
The shaving-cream blast of juniper, a hallmark of classic gins, has been sidelined.
In its place are bold notes of citrus and cardamom, prompting a traditional gin lover to ask perhaps: Where's the Beefeater?
"I kind of went down the citrus-spice road, if you will," Arne Hillesland, technical director and master distiller at Distillery 209, told me over the phone. "It's not a big, giant Christmas tree of a gin."
Likely to be rolled out to British Columbia and Alberta in late summer, the spirit also displays an opulent texture and subtle sweetness evocative of many pricey vodkas, the latter feature a virtue of its unconventional base grain, corn, the stuff that gives bourbon whisky its characteristic sweetness.
No. 209, which takes its name from a federal licence number for a long-defunct distillery in nearby Napa Valley, may be the most compelling example of a new field of liquors Mr. Hillesland calls "nouveau gins." Though variously flavoured with herbs, spices and fruits, what unites them is simple: less juniper, the coniferous berry that has been gin's defining ingredient since its creation in the Netherlands in the 17th century.
Building on a trend that started years ago with European brands such as the fruity Tanqueray No. Ten and cucumber-laced Hendrick's, the field has opened way up to a host of boutique players, mainly from so-called microdistilleries sprouting up across the United States. Though most are not yet imported to Canada, they include Aviation (a hot brand that plays up lavender), Sarticious (cinnamon and cilantro), DH Krahn (Thai ginger) and Distiller's Gin No. 6 (lavender again). Widely available across Canada and a steal for the money is the English-made Quintessential, another lavender-scented brand that also gets an infusion of lotus flowers. It sells for as little as $27.49 in Newfoundland and Labrador, $27.75 in British Columbia and $27.95 in Ontario.
These kinder, gentler gins are aimed, of course, at the ubiquitous vodka drinker. By taming juniper and reaching for au courant scents from the aromatherapy cabinet, these gins are supposed to be more cocktail-friendly, or at least more cocktail-friendly to cosmo-tippling, spa-hopping urbanites who learned how to drink by watching Sex and the City rather than, say, by reading Kingsley Amis.
"You get that wonderful welcoming scent," Mr. Hillesland said of bergamot, a prominent ingredient in No. 209. The aromatic citrus fruit, whose oil is responsible for the flavour of Earl Grey tea, is widely used in the perfume industry to impart a subtle lemon-lime-like scent. Instead of extracting oil from the peel, though, as some other gins do, Mr. Hillesland dumps the whole peel into the still for a fresher taste.
"I think it's a very approachable gin for folks who may have a preconceived notion about gins being medicinal or overbearing," he said.
