![Some of the botanicals used to create Four Pillars Gin.](/content/dam/images/g/s/x/f/3/i/image.related.afrArticleLead.620x350.gsc9jf.png/1480592089782.jpg)
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It’s the buzz word of the moment: botanicals. Derived from plants, roots, leaves, barks andberries, sometimes wild, often medicinal, they’re why you love your gin (juniper berry, angelica root, cardamom, orange peel) and your vermouth (cardamom, camomile, cloves, cinnamon, hyssop). And they’re coming to a menu near you.
At Wildflower in Perth, chef-to-watch Jed Gerrard is inspired by the botanicals used by the traditional Noongar people. “The banksias have just started flowering, for instance,” he says. “So we’re using the flowers to make a syrup, just as they would.”
In Sydney, Hamish Ingham and Rebecca Lines have built both menu and drinks list at their new Banksii vermouth bar and bistro on the power of botanicals. Witness oysters topped with lantana flowers, mussels with nettle butter, and the Australiano cocktail of “Regal Rogue red vermouth, Italian bitter orange, Tasmanian pepperberry bitters, soda, grapefruit and olive”.
Even the spent botanicals left from the distilling of the Yarra Valley’s Four Pillars Gin have another life. In what must be the ultimate neighbourhood recycling scheme, Brett and Felicity Ellis of nearby Yarra Valley Berkshires feed their rare-breed piglets an aromatic mush of the juniper, coriander seeds, pepperberry, cardamom, star anise, lavender and lemon myrtle left from making the award-winning gin. The resulting “gin pigs” go to local restaurants such as the Healesville Hotel. “The pork gains further depth with the flavour of the botanicals coming through,” claims Ellis, who, in turn, does his best to sample the odd gin and tonic.
![The spent botanicals left from the distilling of the Yarra Valley’s Four Pillars Gin have another life.](/content/dam/images/g/s/x/f/3/0/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1480300181386.jpg)