Seedlip Drinks Spice 94 (700 mL)

Seedlip started in 2014 in Ben Branson’s cottage in the British countryside, with a small copper still, herbs from his own garden, and a book. The book was The Art of Distillation, published in 1651, which describes distilled remedies made without any alcohol in them at all — and that turned out to be the idea nobody had picked up in three and a half centuries.

What came of it takes six weeks a batch. Every ingredient is macerated and copper-pot distilled on its own before anything is blended, which is slower than making one distillate from a basket of botanicals and is the reason Garden 108 tastes of peas rather than of green. Then blending, filtration, and bottling in England.

There are four, and they go in different directions rather than being four shades of one idea. Garden 108 is peas and hay with rosemary, thyme and spearmint. Grove 42 is three kinds of orange over lemongrass and ginger, with a sansho peppercorn prickle. Spice 94 is Jamaican allspice and cardamom over oak and cascarilla, and finishes long and bitter. Notas de Agave is prickly pear, lime and agave with vanilla and damiana flower.

No sugar and no sweetener in any of them, which is the harder way to make something taste of anything.