“One thing that has always bothered me about too many gins is that – although they frequently contain more than 30 ingredients – I can consciously detect only a small number of them.  Thus I wanted to produce a gin that reduced things to the essentials, in which each ingredient had an important role to play in the ultimate taste”

Words from David Gölles – creator of Hands On Gin.  Based in Austria, this is an interesting concept for the category.  While some would argue that the higher level of botanicals complement each other – it does make you ask the questions, if “X” gin didn’t have “Y” in it – would it taste the same?

So I was very interested to taste Hands On Gin.  At a healthy 46.5% abv, it also has a gold hand-print on the bottle, each finger representing one of the five botanicals on offer here – Juniper, Blackcurrant, Coriander Leaf, Lemongrass and Orange Peel.  Quite refreshing branding… with the words “No bullsh*t added” as part of the description on the back of the bottle.  All is looking good so far.

On the nose, it’s quite subtle – I was expecting two of the fingers – coriander and lemongrass to poke up my nose, but it’s rather balanced.

To taste – Juniper remains earthy, linked nicely with the zest of the citrus.  Plump blackcurrant sits in the middle.  It remains fairly spirit-y – firstly I thought this was because of the few ingredients, I think the lemongrass creates a real perfumed twang – but also, the botanicals are steeped in a white rum, especially made for maceration.  Overall it’s lovely and straight forward – but with contemporary flavours.  This would be a great way to take people to the next level of tasting, because each botanical is fairly easily identifiable – just how David wanted it to be.

Sticking it’s fingers up to the norm – Hands On Gin keeps it simple – but with attitude and awesome flavour. Hopefully available in the UK soon – you’ll be able to get your Hands On it soon (sorry….!)