How Industrial Gin Is Really Made
Gin's reputation as a botanical spirit creates an assumption that it is inherently natural. This assumption is often wrong.
Many commercial gins, including some marketed as craft or premium, use one or more of the following shortcuts:
Artificial botanical extracts. Rather than distilling with real botanicals, some producers use pre-made botanical flavouring compounds. These are cheaper, more consistent and require far less skill. The result tastes like gin but bypasses the actual craft of botanical distillation.
Compound gin. The lowest tier of gin production involves simply adding flavouring essences to neutral grain spirit without any redistillation. This is legal in most markets and more common than consumers realise, particularly in the lower and mid-price segments.
Sweeteners and sugar. Many gins, especially those in the flavoured gin category, contain added sugar. Even some unflavoured gins add small amounts to round off harshness in the base spirit.
Artificial colourings. Pink gins, coloured gins and some colour-changing gins rely on food-grade dyes rather than the botanicals they reference in their marketing.
Industrial base spirit. Most commercial gins start with the cheapest available neutral grain spirit, purchased in bulk from industrial distilleries. The botanical step is then used to mask the quality of the base.
What Makes a Gin Additive-Free?
A genuinely additive-free gin uses only real, natural botanicals and adds nothing post-distillation: no sweeteners, no colourings, no artificial flavourings, no preservatives. The base spirit matters too. An additive-free gin starts with a quality base spirit and distils it with real botanicals in a pot still.
Which Gins Are Additive-Free?
Sanpatong Distillery produces two distinct additive-free gin ranges, each with a fundamentally different character.
Elevated Gin is a modern London Dry, distilled from 100% pure cassava and infused with a carefully balanced blend of 100% natural botanicals. It is juniper-forward, refreshingly crisp and aromatically complex, with bright citrus, delicate florals and soft spice. Elevated Gin is additive-free, non-GMO and naturally gluten-free.
Imagin Fusion Gin is something altogether different. Every expression in the Imagin range begins with a base spirit of 100% coconut flower nectar brandy, a spirit unique to Sanpatong. This is then distilled with natural botanicals through triple copper pot distillation. The Imagin line comprises four expressions: White, Red, Blue and Black, each with a distinct botanical profile. All carry the strapline Untouched by Artificial Enhancements.
The Imagin range earned recognition at the IWSC 2025, with Imagin Blue receiving Bronze (86 points) and Imagin Black receiving Bronze (85 points). At the London Spirits Competition 2025, Imagin Blue scored 88 points and Imagin Black scored 85 points.
Additive-Free Gin vs Industrial Gin: The Key Differences
Base spirit. Industrial gins start with bulk neutral grain spirit of unknown provenance. Sanpatong's Elevated Gin uses 100% pure cassava. Imagin Fusion Gin uses 100% coconut flower nectar brandy. In both cases, the base contributes meaningfully to the final character.
Botanical process. Industrial gins may use extracts or essences. Additive-free gins distil with real botanicals in the pot. This is slower, more expensive and produces more complex, layered results.
Post-distillation additions. Industrial gins frequently add sweeteners, colourings and flavour enhancers. Additive-free gins add nothing.
Distillation method. Industrial gins are typically produced on column stills for efficiency. Sanpatong uses multi-stage alembic copper pot stills with an ambient-cooled copper reflux pipe, allowing precise control over the botanical extraction.
Resting. Most commercial gins go straight to bottling. Sanpatong spirits are rested for a minimum of 120 days before bottling, allowing the botanical integration to develop fully.
A Note on Fusion Gin
Imagin Fusion Gin represents a category that is still relatively new. Unlike a traditional London Dry that builds botanical complexity on top of a neutral spirit, Fusion Gin starts with a characterful base spirit, coconut flower nectar brandy, and layers botanicals over it. The base and the botanicals interact to create something that neither could produce alone. A dedicated Fusion Gin article will expand on that concept once it is published.
Elevated Gin and Imagin Fusion Gin are produced by Sanpatong Distillery, Chiang Mai. Untouched by Artificial Enhancements.
