ND Mountain Dry Gin

ND Mountain Dry Gin from Norrbottens Destilleri with Birch and Timut Pepper

ND Mountain Dry Gin from Norrbottens Destilleri is a Swedish dry gin with 43.5 percent alcohol, in which young birch leaves and mountain angelica from Norrbotten meet Timut pepper from the Himalayas. Eleven botanicals, distilled in small batches in Töre, not in a large-scale distillery.

ND Mountain Dry Gin is the mountain gin from Norrbottens Destilleri in Töre in northern Sweden. The 500 ml bottle features the profile of these mountains as a fine line on the label, which runs from a clear white to a deep petrol blue, like a fell in the evening light. What’s inside grows between Lapland and the Himalayas.

Birch leaf in late spring, pepper from the Himalayas

There are eleven botanicals in this gin, and two of them give it its Nordic character.

The birch leaves are picked in late spring, when they are still young and sticky and smell most strongly of fresh foliage. Added to this is mountain angelica, which grows wild throughout northern Sweden and has long had a place in Sami cuisine. The counterpoint is provided by Timut pepper from the Himalayan mountains, a relative of Szechuan pepper, whose scent is more reminiscent of grapefruit than spiciness.

A portion of the botanicals is steeped in alcohol before distillation, while another portion hangs fresh above the still, where only the steam is allowed to pass through. In this way, only the delicate essence of the birch leaf is extracted, leaving the grassiness behind.

On the nose, the gin is fresh, resinous, and citric; on the palate, the juniper leads, calm and rounded. The finish is crisp, and the pepper leaves a slight tingle on the tongue. Milder than the 43.5 percent alcohol would suggest, it carries its strength without an edge.

A tonic that leaves room for the birch leaf

A restrained, dry tonic is the obvious stage for this gin, along with a slice of grapefruit instead of the usual lemon.

Four centiliters over plenty of ice, the tonic poured along the edge of the glass to preserve the carbonation – this way, the birch and pepper stand side-by-side without one masking the other. The gin also holds its own in a Martini, because its juniper core is strong enough to stand up to the vermouth. It also works well served neat over ice.

Those who prefer their far-north spirit sweet and festive will find it in the ND Glögg Gin Liqueur with Meadowsweet from the same producer. Other juniper spirits from near and far can be found in the gin section right next door.

Ten medals for a gin from the fells

At the 2020 Gin Masters, the Mountain Dry Gin took home the Master title, the highest level of this competition.

As early as 2019, the Berlin International Spirits Competition awarded it gold with 94 points, and the IWSC in London awarded it silver the following year. In China, gold and later double gold were added at the China Wine & Spirits Awards, and in the United States, silver with 87 points. Ten medals in three years is a respectable yield for a single bottle from a village on the Gulf of Bothnia.

Those looking for the landscape this gin comes from will think of Sweden’s fells, of barren ridges and deep valleys, of birch trees that barely reach knee height, and of a summer that makes up for everything in just a few weeks. That is exactly where the leaf and the angelica come from, while the pepper comes from an entirely different mountain range.

You can find the entire range from Norrbottens Destilleri under one roof with us. A gin that does not deny its home.