I was lucky enough to be visited by the lovely chaps from the Four Pillars Gin distillery a couple of weeks ago. Interestingly enough we’d already earmarked Four Pillars for our new tasting menu so it was very nice to sit and chat and sample their gins, including a fantastic ‘Gunpowder proof’ at 58.8% set to be launched later this year. (of which we have the only bottle in th Northern hemisphere!)
So on to Four Pillars Rare Dry Gin. 
On the nose it’s immediately citrussy with clear lemon and coriander, which is followed by soft floral notes of lavender. The lemon is from Lemon Myrtle, which brings a fantastic heady lemon without any peal-y bitterness.
To taste neat the lemon leads and sets a crisp backdrop for lavender notes, there is then a strong dry punch with pleasant bitter notes and a soft pepper finish, which comes from Tasmanian Pepperberry.
Mixed with tonic the gin opens out, orange, of which they use whole fruit which is quite unusual comes through with the pepperberry giving a soft light pepper finish.
This is a fascinating gin offering which is together floral, spicy and dry, and we thought had the characteristics of your typical Aussie: bold, friendly and self-assured!
We’re looking forward to trying this in a Negroni, and as a G&T we’ll garnish with orange. Good work chaps!