Heritage and Youth
Qualities in Hendrick’s Top Quality – and Unusual - Gin

By Martin Pilkington

How old is heritage? The question comes to mind when considering Hendrick’s Gin, the premium brand in the William Grant stable. As you’d expect, the answer is complicated.

Grant’s dates back to the 1880s, when the founder built Glenfiddich distillery, partly with his own fair hands. There’s a great tradition of distilling in the company, to state the obvious, and of innovation – pioneering as their recent Inspiring Pioneers report would dub it. Hendrick’s, for all its beautiful bottle design like something from the shelf of a Victorian pharmacy, was dreamt up at the end of the last century, so is a mere child as a brand – and it is a pioneering product too.

Yes but. One of the two stills used in making it is older than the William Grant company, bought by a canny executive and set to one side for years. The other still dates to the period just after World War Two. And Lesley Gracie, the lady who oversees the production of Hendrick’s, has been with the group for 23 years. So can you import heritage?

Setting the matter in context adds another angle. The last decade or so have seen the rise and rise of the premium gin. Of late Adnams have entered the fray with two. Greenall’s have launched Bloom and the super-premium Berkeley Square. Sipsmith, lauded by so many, only arrived in 2009, 10 years after Martin Miller came on the scene. A host more could be listed here. Hendrick’s, in this youthful company, is thus something of a veteran.

In the end, much though foodies (and drinkies if those of us with a love for the finer alcoholic things in life can be so called) love heritage, the really important things are quality and interest. Happily Hendrick’s has both.

At an event run by the company at the end of October I was lucky enough to tour the still-house, though tour is a big word for such small artisanal premises, albeit within a major site for other spirit. Stills are things of beauty, and it did the heart good to see the 1860 Bennett copper pot still sitting alongside the 1948 Carter-Head. Distillers always claim that the shape of the still, angle of pipes etc influence the flavours of the spirit they make, and the subsequent tasting proved that general point beyond argument.

The Carter-Head is rather gentler on the botanicals than its fellow, making it easy to pick out the citrus flavours, and the while the Bennett produces more robust, forthright spirit, with a lot of the floral notes to the fore – the yarrow and chamomile, but also something indefinably blossomy (indeed blousy) about it.

Hendrick’s blend the two in an undisclosed ratio in their small batch production – 450 litres of spirit at a time, though my surmise is that they are roughly even. With 11 botanicals in the recipe and two very individual characters of spirit the gin is already rather unusual, but then they go further, and add essence of rose and cucumber, the former bumping up the floral character. Cucumber as a vegetable is not the biggest flavour in the greengrocer’s shop, but it does more than hold its own in this quirky gin. We got to nose – not taste – the essences, and it is surprising that the powerful rose should in the spirit play a supporting role to the more delicate cucumber.

Cocktails have never been truly out of fashion since the Bennett still was young, but over the last decade they have became ultra-cool again, and the makers of Hendrick’s insist mixologists are going with their bottle big-time. For me, however, it is much better employed in a simple G&T, with the Hendrick’s signature touch of a slice of cucumber (lemon would be a mistake), where the subtleties of its rose and the hints of its botanicals can be picked out and enjoyed, rather than overwhelmed by a half-dozen rival spirits and syrups. It is a lovely gin, almost innocent; and to return to my starting point, in spite of the period bottle, Hendrick’s has a rather youthful feel to it whatever your view of its heritage.

All images © Hendrick's