FIRST JOURNEYS - 80 GINS AROUND THE WORLD - PIN 56 OF 80
STRANGER & SONS, India
AROUND THE WORLD, ONE BOTTLE AT A TIME,
PHILEAS FOGG WOULD SURELY APPROVE
It's time to open this beauty from Third Eye Distillery in Goa. I've been looking forward to this one because Stranger & Sons is one of those bottles where the story starts before you even get to the gin. The name, the label, the mythical creature and the Indian ingredients all have a part to play, so let's get into the story behind the bottle.
India has a long tradition of storytelling, with different regions using narration, puppets, masks, music and performance to pass stories from one generation to the next. Folklore often brings together kings and queens, mythical creatures, brave hunters and animals, with stories preserving culture, beliefs and traditions along the way.
Storytelling is very much at the heart of Stranger & Sons, and the founders have created their own Indian legend to explain how their gin came to be.
Deep in the Western Ghats lives a strange two-tailed, three-eyed creature. According to the story, she discovered juniper berries hidden inside the secret pocket of a sari blouse while wandering through the jungle. She appears on full moon nights, carrying a pot in one hand and hiding secret ingredients in her two tails. Her third eye is apparently how she chooses the people to whom she reveals her secrets.
The story is wonderfully bonkers, but there is a reason behind it. The founders wanted Stranger & Sons to celebrate the strange, contradictory and wonderfully diverse nature of India — its customs, colours, cultures, myths and mysteries.
Even the name has a story.
Stranger celebrates India's peculiarities and the idea that nothing is quite as it first appears. Sons is a nod to the generations of Indian family businesses that have passed knowledge and craftsmanship down through the years.
The gin itself was created by Sakshi Saigal, Rahul Mehra and Vidur Gupta, who founded Third Eye Distillery in 2018. They had noticed that there were plenty of “Indian” gins being made around the world using Indian ingredients, but very few quality gins actually being made in India.
They decided to change that.
Goa was a natural home for the distillery. It has a long association with the alcohol trade, going back to its Portuguese history, as well as a strong connection to India's spice trade. The founders also had access to local botanicals and began working with ingredients from Goa and other parts of India.
The recipe brings together nine botanicals, with four different Indian citrus ingredients — Gondhoraj, Nagpur orange, Indian bergamot and lime — alongside juniper, black pepper, coriander, mace, liquorice, cassia and nutmeg.
The citrus is a lovely link to the geography of India, while the spices bring in something of the masala dabba, the traditional Indian spice box found in so many kitchens. The ingredients aren't there simply because they sound Indian; they are part of the everyday flavours and aromas that inspired the gin.
There is also a rather nice story behind the waste from all that citrus. The peels used in the distillation have been repurposed into products such as pickles and jams by local women, giving another life to something that would otherwise be discarded.
The bottle is where the story really comes together. The mysterious creature appears on the label, surrounded by the sun and moon. These represent Dawn and Dusk, the two sides of the Stranger & Sons drinking story. The sun is used for the Dawn serve, while the moon represents Dusk.
I really like that the label isn't simply decorative. Once you know the story, you can start spotting all the little details and connections. The creature, the sun and moon, the strange mythology and the ingredients are all part of the same idea.
Third Eye Distillery has grown considerably since Stranger & Sons first appeared. The company now has a wider portfolio of Indian spirits and drinks, while continuing to make Stranger & Sons in Goa. The brand has also continued to create special editions and collaborations, including a gin created for AER at the Four Seasons Mumbai and a sherry-cask-finished version.
Stranger & Sons was one of the bottles that helped put modern Indian gin on the map, but what makes it particularly memorable for me is that the Indian influence isn't just in the botanicals. It's in the name, the story, the artwork, the way the ingredients are sourced and even the serves suggested by the people who created it.
There is a lot going on here, but perhaps that's the point. India itself is difficult to put into a single neat box, so why should its gin be any different?
A gin wrapped in Indian folklore, where a mysterious creature guards the secret of nine botanicals.
Dawn is the lighter daytime moment and is represented by the Gimlet. Dusk belongs to the Gibson, which fits nicely with the brand's Indian pickling heritage.
I've gone with Dawn — a simple Gimlet made with 4 parts gin and 1 part lime cordial.
"Show me a bottle
and I'll tell you a story."