On Tuesday, June 27, 2017, I was in Washington D.C. for work. I had just finished dinner at Tail Up Goat and was walking around, killing some time until Kelly flew in to meet me. I stumbled upon the District Distillery tasting room on U Street. There was a lively bar on the second floor, but the tasting room was empty except for me and the man working there. I sampled both their traditional gin, Checkerbark, and WildJune, a New Western Style gin. In the end, I bought a bottle of WildJune, and continued my walk, and met up with my wife.
What made the gin at District Distilling really unique is the juniper they use. Instead of distilling their gins with common juniper, they foraged wild juniper berries in the West Texas mountains. WildJune uses wild Red Berry juniper which has juicier berries than traditional juniper. Their Checkerbark, a London Dry gin, got its name from the green berried juniper they use to make it. The two junipers are very different from each other and so are the gins. There is something satisfying knowing you are drinking gin from a wild, foraged, uncommon juniper berry. I think someone could make an entire line of gins each hyper-focused on the sixty different species of juniper around the world.
In addition to Red Berry Juniper, WildJune uses ten other botanicals, including coriander, citrus zest, centennial hops, lemon balm, and cinnamon. It has enough complexity to enjoy it neat. The cinnamon and the hops are clearly present. It is spicy with a heat from both the spices and the alcohol which measures at 90 proof. I really enjoy it in a gin and tonic.
The bottle I have was hand-labeled as Batch 1, which they originally planned to make only about 650 bottles of. Also written on the label in silver is the alcohol content and the year it was bottled. It is a rather busy bottle, with flowers and even a bee in muted colors. They were selling them in the tasting room for $35.
Unfortunately, their unique juniper berries were not enough to keep District Distilling open, but you can still get WildJune. There is a distiller called WildGins out of Austin, TX who makes two gins, WildJune and WildBark. (Sounds a bit like Checkerbark doesn't it.) While I haven't dug into the history, and I will continue to organize gin no. 011 under DC gin in The Collection, it seems as though the concept lives on deep in the heart of Texas.
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