Noteworthy Navy Strength Gin

Chiselled into the label of Noteworthy Navy Strength Gin is a portrait of Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. Back in the day, the Romans would offer Ceres grain and then sacrifice a pregnant pig to kick off the growing season. Ceres, for her part, would bless the crops and livestock. Dubh Glas Distillery founder Grant Stevely doesn’t need old-fashioned Roman rituals to appease a higher power. His Okanagan whisky-making program sacrifices enough through its angel’s share. So, when it comes time for Stevely to make gin, instead of eyeing local livestock, he offers 100% British Columbia barley and eight botanicals to his gleaming copper pot still.

When Stevely decided to bottle a 57% expression of his Noteworthy gin, he wasn’t planning on leading the way for Canadian distilleries to make a navy strength gin. Instead, he was thinking about his success in making cask strength whiskies. “We were sipping the gin directly off the still at 70 to 80% and fell in love with the range of bold flavours,” says Stevely. Of course, most people walking off the street wouldn’t be interested in such a high-proof spirit, but the more research he did on high-proof gins, the more Stevely saw an opportunity.

In the Navy

The story of Navy Strength gin dates back to the 18th century. The anecdote tells us that the British Royal Navy loaded gin rations and other spirits aboard ships to help fight illness at sea. Unfortunately, there was no way to measure alcohol, so sailors suspicious of watered-down gin devised a testing method of their own. First, a pinch of gunpowder was added to the gin and then it was lit with a magnifying glass. The gin received a Navy stamp of approval if the flame burned blue.

Sailing a Sea of Flavour

“Alcohol is a solvent,” explains Stevely. “In the spirits world, higher proof alcohol is used to dissolve flavour. In the case of gin, it’s the botanical’s essential oils that the alcohol extracts. Using more alcohol packs more flavour in a smaller space, so at 57%, we can produce a lot of flavour.” These intense flavours spin across the citrus-forward palate with a pop of fresh Cara Cara oranges together with juniper and lavender floral accents. A spicy top note drives the gin’s complexity through the high-octane palate, where sweet vanilla bean raises sail while a subtle bitter herbal note weighs anchor on the palate. The finish shines like red sky at night, with citrus zest and calming spice.

Stevely composes this deep-six flavour profile by adding the botanicals directly to the pot still and allowing them to soak overnight in a high-proof double-distilled base spirit. After this maceration soak, he distils the spirit a third time, bypassing the column and going straight to the condenser. This allows the flavourful essential oils to survive the distillation process, giving Noteworthy Navy Strength Gin an oily umami texture, remarkable in its tone and flavour. Perhaps this explains those British sailors putting up a fuss and also why gin never appeared on a to-be-sacrificed list in ancient Rome.