Germany's Skin Gin brings a seafaring twist

JBE Imports has become the exclusive UK importer of German gin – Skin Gin, a London Dry style gin that has been getting a lot of attention in Europe since its launch last year.

Created by Martin Birk Jensen from an idea he formed a couple of years ago, Skin Gin and it’s packaging stands out as being different. The gin’s most dominant flavour note is Moroccan Mint. It combines four citrus fruits and Vietnamese coriander with German Juniper as the main distillate. The mint, however, is the botanical that comes to the fore initially bringing a freshness combined with fruitiness, followed by a late peak of Juniper.

“We separately distil seven botanicals, which are, in the end, blended to make Skin Gin. This creates a very fresh and crisp taste due to the key notes of mint and citrus fruit (lime, lemon, pink grapefruit and orange),” says Jonathan Braham-Everett, director JBE Imports. 

To market the gin as a high-end, 100% handcrafted luxury brand, Martin Jensen developed a bottle design that would express “the same feeling to the consumer, as the product was about to give”. 

The minimalistic Anchor in the logo unites the Hamburg brand with the shipping society of Germany and the seaman who for decades have drunk gin on the world’s seven seas.  The anchor is also associated with the tattoos on the skin of a seaman and together with the hot foil stamped leather wrap that is hand applied to the bottles, the brand name Skin Gin is borne.

The brand emphasis from the gin-making to the packaging is high end and handmade in Germany. The bottles are hot stamped in Bavaria and each bottle is wrapped by hand by a small German family manufacturer then sent to the distillery in Jork.

There are three editions of Skin Gin: Anthracite Grey, Reptile Brown and Edition Blanc. All the bottles contain the same gin but are packaged differently.

In addition, every retail or on-trade stockist can have its own Skin Gin edition with their logo branded onto a choice of 500 different colours and surfaces (Two brands that already brought into this are Bentley and McClaren). The gin remains same underlining the fact that “each skin can be different on the outside, but inside, we are all the same”. The minimum order is nine cases / 108 bottles.

25 July 2016 - Felicity Murray The Drinks Report, editor