Gray Whale Gin: The California Coastal Gin, Explained

Gray Whale Gin is $32.99, comes in a bottle with a whale on it, and is one of the few gins on our shelf where the story on the label is actually the recipe. Six botanicals, all of them foraged along the California coast, picked because that is the route gray whales swim on their way from Baja to the Arctic.

The six botanicals

Most gin brands will tell you they use botanicals and then decline to say which. Gray Whale names all six and where each one comes from, which is the whole point of the bottle.

Juniper from Big Sur. Kelp from Mendocino. Limes from Baja California. Fir from Sonoma. Mint from Santa Cruz. Almonds from the Central Valley.

Read that list from south to north and you have traced the migration. Baja at one end, Mendocino at the other. It is a marketing idea that happens to also be a coherent flavour idea, which is rarer than it sounds.

Kelp is the one that makes it unusual. It is not a common gin botanical and it is doing something specific here - the sea-salt lift in the middle of the palate is not citrus and it is not juniper, and once you notice it you cannot stop noticing it.

How it tastes

Bright juniper on the nose first, then citrus zest, mint and a faint ocean minerality behind it. The palate is smooth and slightly oily, with kelp, fennel and warm almond sitting under a piney lift. The finish is clean and green and stays herbal rather than turning sweet.

It is distilled at Golden State Distillery in Sebastopol, in Sonoma County, and bottled at 43%. That extra three points over the standard 40% is why it stands up in a tall drink instead of disappearing into the tonic.

What to make with it

A gin and tonic with cucumber and a squeeze of lime is the drink this gin was built for. The cucumber picks up the kelp, the lime picks up the Baja limes, and the almond gives the whole thing a soft edge that most dry gins do not have.

A Negroni works, and the herbal finish keeps it from going flat against the sweet vermouth. So does a Salty Dog with grapefruit, where the sea-salt note stops being subtle and becomes the point of the drink.

Over rocks with a splash of tonic and a sprig of mint is the easy Shabbos afternoon version, and it is a genuinely good one.

Where it sits against the rest of the gin shelf

$32.99 is the interesting number, because it is craft-gin flavour at supermarket-gin money. The gin shelf makes the comparison easy.

Bombay Sapphire is $32.99, the exact same price, and is a classic London dry - ten botanicals, vapour infused, juniper-forward and predictable in the good sense. Beefeater is $29.99 and is the benchmark London dry that every gin cocktail was written for.

Both of those are the traditional style. Gray Whale is not, and if you want the difference spelled out, what London dry gin actually means is the place to start.

Hendrick's at $35.99 is the closest thing on the shelf in spirit - another gin that broke the London dry rules on purpose, with cucumber and rose instead of kelp and fir. Three dollars more.

Above that, Gin Mare at $39.99 does the coastal idea from the other ocean, with olive, rosemary, thyme and basil. Gray Whale and Gin Mare on the same table is a genuinely interesting side by side - Pacific against Mediterranean.

Barr Hill at $42.99 is the other end of the craft argument entirely: raw honey, two ingredients, nothing else.

Who should buy it

If your gin drinking has been Beefeater and Tanqueray and you want to find out what a modern gin does differently without spending forty dollars to find out, this is the bottle. If you already know you like Hendrick's, you will like this and it is three dollars less.

If you want juniper and only juniper in a Martini, buy a London dry instead - Gray Whale is too green and too coastal for that job, and dry gin is what you are actually after.

On kashrus, the label carries no hechsher. Unflavoured gin is generally treated as acceptable under Star-K guidelines, which is why it is on the shelf, and the same reasoning we walk through in the gin botanicals guide. Ask your rav if you want to be sure. It is not kosher for Passover - it is a grain spirit.

Questions, call the store at (347) 533-8586. We ship anywhere in the country.