Witch’s Gin

Getting Witchy

Witch’s gin is not just for witches. It is, however, for anyone thinking about gin as a way to conjure up memories.

Gin is the voyagers drink. Whether we’re armchair travelers or jet-setters a good gin can send us. Gin is the beverage extracted from exotic ingredients from far away places, concocted during the colonial age of exploration.  Herbs and spices from Indonesia, Morocco and China remind us that this once medicinal tincture of just juniper slowly became the blend of orange, coriander and cardamom that it is today. Juniper as a traditional remedy would cleanse the body of infection and was an essential provision of sojourners. Because medicinally juniper helps to stimulate the body (as well as the spirit) to let go of whatever it might be holding, sometimes gin drinkers can get a little whimsical from whatever might recirculate in the blood. Today gin is often thought of as a cultivated spirit, something more delicate than whiskey or brandy. Funny though, you have to be quite hardy to travel around the world in wooden boats and remain intact. Still, what if gin could be something else? 

Nearly everything that can be done to gin has been done to gin: cucumbers and roses and exotic roots and spices float around the nexus of juniper and a neutral spirit.  But what if the whole idea of gin changed? If it wasn't about traditions of exotic conquest but rather about placemaking and story-telling. What if gin is the beverage that helps ground us in the places we love and weave our magical tales of being away and returning? Can a gin be about the joy of wandering and the exploration of our curiosities? Because as travelers we always return home and tell our stories. 

Witch's Gin is meant to be distinctly about a place.  Every time I land at any airport in my home state, I take a deep breath of air that, no matter what time of year, smells like petrichor, earth, and forest. That scent is a unique comfort of the familiar and a reminder that the familiar is only a comfort after being away from it.  Big Wild Spirits’ Witch's Gin is made from Oregon itself. Its botanicals are collected from the forests and fields, the coast and high desert. This gin honors it's traditional heritage but demands to cast its own spell. Witch’s Gin is for drinking and dreaming; loving where you are and imagining where you might go. Happy travels! Enjoy!