Plymouth’s Sean Harrison

Gin
and the Man Who Makes It

Sean
Harrison
Master Distiller of Plymouth Gin

During his six
and a half years in the Royal Navy, Plymouth Gin Master
Distiller Sean Harrison spent his time “piloting ships
around” – and rarely consumed any gin. He didn’t give a
thought to the official gin of the Royal Navy, never
imagining he’d land at the company that provides it after
his Navy service. Because he happened to be stationed in the
port of Plymouth on England’s south coast, Harrison applied
for his first civilian job at Plymouth Gin. It was an
unassuming entry-level position, but as he learned about the
product his new employer made, he recalls, he “asked if they
would train me and they said ‘yeah.'”

A
Non-scientist Learns Science

Sounds pretty
straightforward. But though he doesn’t say it in so many
words, it took some work to master, especially as Harrison
wanted to fully understand all aspects of this his new
discipline. “If you are interested, you spend more time,” he
explains. “If you’re not interested you won’t bother to pick
up the book.” Brought up in the Lake District in the
northwestern part of England, Harrison remembers in
secondary school, “I did chemistry ’til I was 16 and math
and science ’til I was 18. I wouldn’t describe myself as a
scientist by any stroke of the imagination,” he laughs. When
he started his training at Plymouth Gin, he went back and
taught himself some of the scientific principles he would
need in this field. He needed to “fundamentally understand
essential oils, which are the fundamentals of gin”. He
studied plants, and how their oils are extracted and used,
which he notes, is similar to perfume and
aromatherapy.

Alcohol
and Purity

For the rest of
us, Harrison wants to simplify the concept of making gin.
“The easiest way to think of gin is ‘flavored vodka,'” he
says. How could this be? Gin and vodka seem to be two very
different spirits. Harrison further explains you can take
wheat or corn or sugar and turn it into alcohol. That
product is essentially vodka. “We buy our alcohol from a
distiller in London,” Harrison reveals. The distiller makes
it with wheat from East Anglia, a large farming district
northeast of London. “You have to make decisions and look
for [certain] characteristics [in the finished
product]. We work with the distiller for the
characteristics we want . . . ‘Potable alcohol’ is the term
for alcohol that is safe to drink. There’s a lot more
filtering in potable alcohol. A lot more care and attention,
and it’s 96% pure.” Why only 96%? “You can get pure alcohol
but only laboratory conditions. If you took it out and
opened the lid it would suck back in the water vapor
[from the air] and drop to 96%.”

Flavoring
and the Art of Taste

The process of
making gin is the process of flavoring the alcohol with
essential oils from plants. “It’s more about applying
flavors,” Harrison explains. And each company has its own
proprietary formula. He must be quite an expert in the
nuances of flavor and aroma, but he would never say so.
Harrison believes, “We’re all pretty much, as human beings,
built the same. It’s all about giving language to what you
smell and taste. Even with supertasters they have to
recognize [each one] and give it a word.”

Critical
Components: History and Juniper

Harrison has the
added challenge of remaining true to history in creating
this product because Plymouth Gin’s “recipe” dates back to
1793. It hasn’t been altered, though “We probably apply a
little more science so we’re able to match the crops better
each year,” he admits, referring to the plant flavorings.
These flavors are actually pure herbs, distilled to give up
their essential oils, which are then added to the alcohol.
For example, there has to be juniper in gin, says Harrison.
“It has to be the largest single flavoring ingredient by
definition.” But it’s up to each producer to source their
own berries. Plymouth gets its juniper berries from Italy.
Even so, he recounts, “We probably look at a hundred samples
of juniper every year. We need to know how much oil is in a
given volume and we need to know what it smells like. It’s
the concept of terroir – it’s very true that plants are
affected by where they grow. We need to keep the flavor
profile [the same] every year.” And he must do the
same with all seven of Plymouth Gin’s flavoring components:
orris root (which is actually iris root) comes from Italy as
well. Lemons and oranges are sourced from somewhere in
Spain. Coriander is from Russia, while angelica originates
in Belgium and cardamom is sent from Sri Lanka. And they are
all natural. “As you see them on the plant, that’s what we
put in the still,” maintains Harrison.

Historical
Distillation

The distillation
process itself is also historical. And Harrison seems to
enjoy that challenge, as well. The gin is distilled today in
the company’s 15O-year-old copper pot-stills. The stills are
even serviced by the same local company that made them
originally. “The great thing about distilling is every time
you turn the still on, it’s an art form,” says Harrison.
“You don’t know when each batch of berries is going to give
up the oils. We’re trying to take out the peaks and the
troughs,” he explains. So the finished gin will have only
the most pure, true flavors.

Batches
and Bottles

Distilling is
done in batches, so it can be done to order, when the
company needs more gin for the marketplace. Nowadays, they
do about 5O batches a year, resulting in 17O,OOO nine-liter
cases. Plymouth produces all bottle sizes including
75Oml,

1 liter, 7OOml
(for everywhere outside the US and Canada), even miniatures.
For the airlines, they do plastic bottles because “weight is
key”, and they know the gin will be consumed in a set time
period. “If you’re not careful,” Harrison cautions, “Plastic
leaches [over time].” Which is one reason they don’t
do plastic bottles for the consumer market. Also, “you
associate weight [of a bottle] with quality,” says
Harrison. “It’s a mindset thing.”

Keeping
Gin

With all these
bottles, how long do they last? Harrison’s explains that,
“alcohol evaporates. The more you empty the bottle, the more
space there is to evaporate, especially in heat or sun.”
Each time you open the bottle, more alcohol is lost into the
air, and more water vapor is absorbed by the gin. “If you
keep [a bottle] in a dark cupboard,” he says it will
last for about two years. “It’s not because the gin is
degraded; you’re drinking more water, less alcohol. If
you’ve got a partial, opened bottle, throw it out after two
years.”

Raising
the Bar in Marketing

Recently,
Plymouth Gin changed their bottle design for higher market
appeal, de-emphasizing the Navy connection by relocating the
ship on the label. But this is only one in a long line of
changes. Harrison says they have a “full display cabinet of
[different] bottles” and labels have always
undergone design transformations as market conditions
dictate. “From a gin point-of-view, Bombay Sapphire changed
the playing field with the blue bottle about 17 years ago.
And the vodka superpremiums changed people’s perception of
high quality.”

Generations
and Drinking

Over all,
Harrison notes there’s been an increase in gin consumption
in the past decade. In the UK, states Harrison “gin has
skipped a generation.” Young people in the 197Os and 198Os
didn’t want to drink what they saw their parents drinking in
the 196Os. Gin was a “missing link until the late ‘9Os or
early 2OOOs,” as Harrison puts it. “There’s always a
generational thing: my parents did that and it’s not
relevant to me.” About drinking in general, Harrison admits,
“I don’t actually drink that much. I have got to the stage
where I don’t like to be drunk. I try to drink better
quality-wise than quantity-wise.”

He has three
children, the oldest is ten. “I take things home and I
basically allow them to try. In the UK [children]
can legally drink at home,” he explains. And he’s greatly in
favor of openness on this topic. Harrison believes “If you
ban something people are more likely to do it.

If someone says
‘don’t do it” kids will do it. [Alcohol] is not a
bad drug until you use to excess, which is true for
anything. Do it in moderation. It’s getting the balance
right.”