Tasting Notes: Greenwich Gin (February 2022 subscription)
In my travels to find the best gin for my shipmates, I have found gins that have allowed me to talk to you about chilling local folklore, the gin craze, history from the times of Romans, Vikings, and Victorians, poetry and 60s movies. This month is a nautical special! Like the Nautilus Smugglers’ Club, Greenwich Gin is inspired by exploration, the ocean, and the effect they have in bringing people together.
The romantic notion put forward by the Gonzalo, the man behind Greenwich that sums up his philosophy is that the fixing of 0° longitude and mean time resulted in people across the world “coming together in agreement on how to measure time and space, a legacy about inclusion and coexistence, seeing the Earth as the one world we all live in.” So let’s talk about that!
Greenwich mean time was simply a system that used the average time the sun was directly above Greenwich observatory. What made GMT so important was its relationship with longitude.
Like so many things, we have the ancient Greeks to thank for longitude. In the 2nd century BC, the Greek astronomer Hipparchus divided a spherical Earth into 360 degrees and placed his prime meridian, the line of longitude to measure the others from, through Alexandria.
These ideas were developed further by another Greek astronomer Ptolemy, and then further still by Hindu and Muslim scientists until finally in the 17th century the Western European powers were able to determine longitude fairly accurately due to the invention of pendulum clocks and telescopes.
To know one’s location on land, you must know latitude, longitude and altitude. At sea, altitude ceases to be a concern and sailors could determine latitude by measuring the sun’s angle at noon. Longitude, however, was much more difficult. Pendulum clocks couldn’t keep time in the tossing waves of the ocean, and in order to work out your longitudinal coordinate you need to be able to accurately compare the time where you are now with a fixed point somewhere else.
In the 18th century, lives were lost from shipwrecks and disease on prolonged voyages. Improved navigation saved lives and created wealth. In 1707, five ships were wrecked near the Isles of Scilly killing 1400 men. Consequently there was no shortage of people lobbying for improvements in navigation and so a challenge was set. In 1714, the British parliament passed the Longitude Act which would reward £20000 to anyone who could find a method to calculate longitude at sea.
Step forward one John Harrison, a clockmaker from Yorkshire whose life’s work was dedicated to this goal. Over several decades Harrison improved his chronometers until finally after 30 years, in 1761, he submitted his H4 chronometer for the longitude prize. It could accurately, at sea, keep the time at the prime meridian, now in Greenwich and with a few calculations and tables nautical navigators could calculate their longitude.
Consequently Greenwich’s prime meridian was gradually adopted by the rest of the world and it is Greenwich’s actual and symbolic role in this story that the gin celebrates.
Gonzalo has travelled the world and has five nationalities so it’s easy to see why tales of exploration touched him. It’s all very well having the story, but what about the gin? Well, it’s a triumph.
On the nose I was hit by a wave of refreshing citrus, particularly orange. On the palate, the citrus remains but you get what makes this gin special - those marine and coastal botanicals - a sea breeze of seaweed, combined with the sweetness of the fennel which stays on to the finish where it’s joined by the almond-like flavour of the tonka bean.
To emphasise that salty coastal wind, I’ve included sampire for garnish. The best tonics for this are the plain, but I’ve also included a mediterranean one to bring out the citrus notes.
For the mystery miniature this month, I’ve kept the theme with Hello Sailor. Hello Sailor is a pretty straight shooting London Dry compared to Greenwich - the root botanicals are more forefront in the mix and it’s as dry as a bone. Consequently it makes a superb Martini.
Until next time, crew
Your loyal Captain