Written by AARON KNOLL Photography by QUAKER CITY MERCANTILE
THE GIN THAT IS A
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bartender reaches for an atomizer to spritz on the final touches to a cocktail they’ve just prepared. Then they reach for that same atomizer to spritz themself. This is the world created by New Hampshirebased Tamworth Distilling. In 2023, they launched Sylvan Mist, a gin designed to be drinkable and wearable. First conceptualized by Tamworth founder Steven Grasse, the gin took two years to formulate and develop. Distiller and organic chemist Matt Power, who oversaw the product’s development, described its beginning. “Steve's a big history guru, and kind of researcher of spirits and liquor, and he really appreciated the balance of qualities and history between perfume production and spirits production. So, he thought it was a natural blend.”
Perfume
A small selection of perfumes with gin like Aromas1 Guilty Pour Homme Parfum by Gucci
Top notes of juniper, lemon, and lavender. Mid notes of orange blossom, labdanum, and nutmeg. Low notes of patchouli, wood, and musk.
Gin and Tonic Cologne by Art de Parfum
Top notes of juniper, lemon, cucumber, and grapefruit. Low notes of vetiver, white musk, ambergris, cedar, and incense.
Gentle Fluidity Silver by Maison Francis Kurkdjian
Notes of juniper, musk, amber, woodsy notes, coriander, nutmeg, and vanilla.
Sylvan Mist Gin by Tamworth Garden
Notes of boronia, grass, violet, kiwi, melon, balsam fir, lemon, and chamomile.
Perfume and gin both use distillation to isolate aromatic molecules from botanicals. Further, both use alcohol as a base to suspend and hold those molecules. However, the biggest difference in composition might be the most obvious one — many common perfume ingredients aren’t approved for consumption in food and drinks. “We tried to use Osmanthus,” Power recounted, “but we couldn't get that through the TTB.”
Concentration Good gins and good perfumes both strike balance in their botanical composition. Both can be described as having “top notes,” which are those first, bright, light volatiles that burst when a gin is first poured or a perfume is first sprayed. They each have “heart” or “middle” notes, and “base” or “low” notes, which linger on the palate and provide a backdrop for the rest. While gin is uniquely assessed, sipped on its own or mixed in cocktails, a successful perfume is also assessed in some unique ways. Perfume needs to last on the skin when sprayed. It needs to project into the air around the wearer and behind them as they move. Common perfume descriptors Longevity
The amount of time that a perfume is detectable for.
Sillage
The trail of scent left behind a wearer as they move.
Projection
The scent that radiates off a wearer when standing still in their presence.
Power outlined the shift in mindset he and the team needed to adopt designing a perfume, with considerations such as longevity, sillage, and projection. “It means it needs to have a lot of concentration of aromatics,” he said. The concentration would affect the way it would be consumed as well. Rather than sipped neat or as a base gin in a martini, it was going to be 1
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Aroma notes excerpted from https://www.fragrantica.com W W W . ARTISANSPIRITMAG . C O M