Massachusetts-based South Hollow Spirits focuses on rum, but it also makes gin, particularly this bottling, which is, like its rum, made from 100% sugar cane. More specifically, here’s the full process:

Dry Line Cape Cod Gin is a small batch, twice-distilled spirit made from organic sugar cane juice. The sugar cane juice is fermented for three weeks and distilled for the first time before the botanicals are added. After the first distillation, the gin moves to 55 gallon steel drums to spend 48 hours steeping with large hemp bags containing a carefully curated local selection of botanicals, including Eastern Red Cedar juniper berries, orange peel, lemon peel, cardamom, allspice, coriander, orris root, grains of paradise, angelica root, anise, and dried cranberry. This infusion method enables the spirit to absorb essential oils from the botanicals before it is redistilled and brought to its final proof of 94.

That’s a pretty traditional botanical bill (cranberry aside); in fact the use of sugar cane as the fermentation base is the biggest twist. It comes through on the finished product, which offers a nose of light juniper, rosemary, and lots of vanilla-citrus sugar layered underneath the herbs. The palate is extremely soft for a gin of this alcohol level, juniper-restrained and silky with light notes of hazelnuts, cloves, and even some milk chocolate. The finish is sweet and lengthy, folding light herbal notes into some lingering sweetness. All told it’s quite unorthodox for a gin, but surprisingly worthwhile in the unique story it has to tell.

Think of it, perhaps, as a juniper-infused white rum.

94 proof. Reviewed: Batch #1, bottle #22.

A- / $45 / southhollowspirits.com 

South Hollow Spirits Dry Line Gin

$45

9

Rating

9.0/10

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