Photo by Cliff Grassmick

Alex Nelson describes how his copper kettle is used to distill gin. The kettle is made in Portugal. Nelson has started Roundhouse Spirits, a company that makes small-batch gin, in Longmont.

What should gin taste like?

Beyond picking a brand to go with your olives, it’s not something even most martini drinkers have thought about in depth.

Gin is, however, something that has consumed the interest of Boulder resident Alex Nelson, who makes small-batch Roundhouse gin, available at the Boulder Wine Merchant, Pettyjohn’s Liquors, The Kitchen, Sobo and Restaurant 4580.

“It’s something I’ve experimented with for years,” he says. “Gin has always been my drink of choice.”

Going from drinking gin to making gin, however, is a process that takes real commitment. Nelson’s non-distilling job is as a lawyer, which no doubt helped him with the reams of paperwork, regulation on the municipal through federal levels, and even an FBI background check on himself and his wife.

He makes his gin in a small warehouse space in Longmont, using 11 organic ingredients to flavor the neutral corn spirits he buys from Kentucky. Those 11 ingredients include star anise, chamomile, hibiscus lavender and juniper — the latter required by law in a product labeled as gin.

Open a bottle of Roundhouse gin, and you’ll get something unexpected. Sally Mohr, co-owner of the Boulder Wine Merchant and a master sommelier, describes the bouquet of the gin like this:

“To me it is like Provence, a little lavender and then the anise. It took me to Southern France.”

Indeed, it’s hard to imagine this gin partnering with dry vermouth and olives. It’s a drink to be savored chilled with no other flavors to muddy the complex gin essence Nelson has laid out for the drinker.

“The anise-licorice element was the strongest, but there were pretty floral notes in there,” Mohr says. “With the herbs, flowers and anise, it was really intriguing.”

She says Nelson brought a sample by the store, and they decided to carry it on the strength of the gin’s local ties and unique flavor. The gin, which has been available for about a month, sells for about $30 a bottle.

Nelson has spent years getting to the flavor he calls gin. He started by infusing vodka with the herbs and flowers he liked.

“I tried a lot of different methods — cold maceration, steeping it in a pot,” he says.

He now uses heat distillation through a small, copper distiller in his Longmont space. During the process, he tests it with a hydrometer to make sure the alcohol percentage is correct and bottles it and sticks the labels on by hand.

“I’ve been really happy with the response,” he says.

In a few months, Nelson plans to bring out a coffee liqueur made with coffee beans from Malawi. In the meantime, he sees a renewed interest in gin.

“Gin sales were declining for almost 30 years,” he says. “(But there’s been) a revival of it on the back end of the vodka craze. People are looking for things that are more flavorful and more interesting.”

He hopes his gin fits that niche.

Mohr suggests serving it as an aperitif rather than as a martini.

“It needs something really unusual as a garnish,” she says. “A lavender twig of a flower.”

Perhaps that’s what gin should taste like.