If you want to really understand gin, it’s important to get to know juniper. We would compare it to understanding the influence of casks for whisky fans, grapes for winos or dilution of ice for bartenders. Juniper is such an important aspect of gin that quite literally, it is not only the primary botanical used in gin but by law, it needs to be the predominant flavour in anything seeking to be classified as gin. The aroma and taste of juniper is – or at least should be – the signature note in any gin, both on the nose and on the palate. Even the name Gin itself is derived from either the French genièvre or the Dutch jenever, which both mean juniper.