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​Winter can offer a slower pace, allowing time for reflection and relaxation. It’s the season for coziness that fosters its own version of warmth- maybe reading a good book by a fire, or watching a movie wrapped in warm blankets, or comfort foods that require you to slow down and savour the process of preparing and sharing meals as you spend time with loved ones.

Juniper has been used in so many ways by so many people over centuries. Apart from its many uses in food preparation, it also has a long history in traditional medicine.

But we of course know juniper as the fundamental botanical for gin! Traditionally, the flavours extracted from juniper berries provide the distinctive taste of gin and the name gin derives from the French or Dutch spellings for juniper. 

While I happily call it a juniper "berry" it is technically a modified conifer cone. But in the picture it looks like a fruit! This captures something of the complexity of these little bundles of earthy, piney goodness that grow on juniper trees. Like so many of the cornerstone things we love, juniper defies easy classification and has a presence in our history and imagination that extends far beyond what its humble appearance might suggest. 

The picture shows a close up of a generous serving of juniper berries happily macerating along with coriander seeds getting ready for another distillation of The Stoic Gin. To these core botanicals Stoic Spirits adds a range of other botanicals in carefully balanced measure. They macerate for 24 hours before being slowly distilled to extract and capture the best parts of the complex flavours that are expressed through the distillation process. ​This is bottled at 40% ABV to create another artisanal small batch of: