Words by Russel Wasserfall // Pictures supplied by Six Dogs
THE SPIRIT OF THE KAROO
An exceptional South African distillery is bottling a gin that uses distinctive Western Cape botanicals to reflect a true local terroir.
It’s a strange name for a gin, but Six Dogs got it from the beloved pets who roam Western Cape farm where this unique distillery was born. Charles Bryant and his wife Mary Louise thought they’d start a little project together on the property in the Nuy Valley near Worcester, so they did a distilling course.
A beautiful column still replaced the original old copper geyser where the first Six Dogs gins were distilled.
“We came back with a horrible-tasting gin that was just palatable enough for our friends to ask for more,” remembers Bryant. That was back in 2011 or 2012 when gin was on the rise globally, and the distilling bug was hungry. The couple converted an old copper geyser into a still and started making gin for themselves and their friends. In the chilly Cape winters, their dogs would gather around the wood fire that drove the still and so Six Dogs Gin was born.
Getting going was not without its challenges. Obtaining the license to start distilling commercially took two years. “We were at a trade show promoting Six Dogs,” recalls the founder. “The guys next to us were making gin on the Isle of Man and they couldn’t believe how long it took for us to get a license in South Africa. It took them two weeks.”
The distillery is on a farm in the Nuy Valley which sits on the border between the Karoo Biome and the Cape Floral Kingdom famous for its fynbos.
Those two years were put to good use though. Bryant and his wife worked hard at refining their core spirit. Everyone in South Africa seemed to be making a fynbos gin at that time, and we decided to create something completely new,” he says. “Our farm straddles two biomes, the Cape fynbos region is evident on one part of the property, and on the mountain behind us, the Karoo biome begins. We set out to capture the Karoo, or our farm’s expression of it, in a bottle. It took 187 iterations and all of the time we were waiting for the license, but we managed to produce something we’re very proud of.”
The farm offered distinctive botanicals like the wild lavender, Karoo thorn flower and Acacia thorn tree which are foraged from the virgin bushveld, as well as the citrus note of lemon buchu which is cultivated there. On top of this, that mountain he mentions provides pure water, filtered through limestone and quartzite, to blend the gin and settle it to 43% proof from the raw distilled product.
Karoo Gin was the first product produced by Six Dogs and it took 187 cooks to get the recipe perfect.
The Karoo, a semi-desert region in South Africa, is known for its unique plant life dominated by succulents and hardy shrubs whose distinctive aromatics are a defense against browsing herbivores. Fynbos is more scrubland, with aromatic shrubs, reeds and bulbs and it makes up the Cape Floral region which is both the smallest and contains the greatest number of species of any of the world’s floral kingdoms.
It’s a gift to a gin crafter and the Bryants have used the region’s aromatics to create a distinctive flavour profile on the spirit’s classic base of juniper berry. More than just a spirit, Six Dogs Karoo Gin is a true reflection of its terroir amid the beauty and diversity of South Africa's natural landscape.
South African writer, photographer and editor Russel Wasserfall has worked in the media space for over 35 years. His work is mainly in the arenas of food and travel and has appeared in more than twenty books and dozens of magazines. Wasserfall has run bars and restaurants, including his award-winning South African restaurant The Table at De Meye, and consults to restaurant start-ups on innovative food concepts. He runs a weekly podcast on the restaurant and food scene in his Cape Town home called A Table in the Corner.
