The spruce adds a fresh, bright note to the gins. While this showed up as peppy and in your face in the Rogue Spruce, it perfectly complemented the delicacy of the Okanagan Spirits gin and rounded it out in the same crisp way as biting into an apple compliments the apple flavour. In contrast, the Victoria Spirits gin seemed spicy, warm, slightly sweet, and nostalgic in the same way drinking an old-fashioned soda does (I feel like I have a good guess for the “secret ingredient”), but did not have the same fresh greenness as the other two.
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pruce is probably as pacific northwestern of a botanical that you can find. To me it’s not an intuitive choice for gin as the immediate thought that came to my mind is that it would compete with juniper, however it is a characteristic feature of the local geography, and is a great choice if you think of it in the context of local, craft distilleries. Intrigued, in a last minute split decision, I chose Rogue Spruce over Aviation as my duty-free on my last Portland trip. Fast forward to a weekend trip last month, while sat down at a beautiful dinner at Sooke Harbour House, I was presented with a G&T with Okanagan Spirits gin, and was captured by its subtle complexity. On purchasing my own bottle I was inspired to read that spruce was one of its botanicals.
For my first tasting note, I thought it fitting to explore how spruce as a botanical affects the flavour profile of gin. I chose three pacific Canadian/US gins to taste for comparison:
Rogue Spruce gin (Portland, Oregon), with spruce as a dominant botanical,
Okanagan Spirits gin (Vernon, BC), with spruce as a complimentary botanical, and
Victoria Spirits gin (Victoria, BC), which has no spruce in it.
Result: Each gin has their unique botanicals that influence them, but from what I could taste spruce adds a fresh, bright note to the gins. While this showed up as peppy and in your face in the Rogue Spruce, it perfectly complemented the delicacy of the Okanagan Spirits gin and rounded it out in the same crisp way as biting into an apple compliments the apple flavour. In contrast, the Victoria Spirits gin seemed spicy, warm, slightly sweet, and nostalgic in the same way drinking an old-fashioned soda does, but it did not have the same fresh greenness as the other two.
In a gin and tonic (Fever Tree) the gins with spruce were perfectly suited to cucumber: the rogue spruce in a “screw the man” type of empowering but rounded way, and the Okanagan Spirits, in a “I want this moment to never end” way. Lime comparatively knocked the balance off for both of these gins turning the G&Ts into a harsher experience than necessary. In contrast the Victoria Spirits turned a bit clashy or washed-out with cucumber, but was well at home and beautifully balanced with lime in the G&T.
Of note, but a bit off-topic, the Okanagan Spirits gin was one I could have happily continued drinking at the neat stage before the tonic was added.
Bottom line: Green and refreshing, spruce adds a brightness to the gin, while embodying the philosophy of showcasing local botanicals. Best in a G&T with cucumber rather than lime to compliment and mellow the flavor profile.
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