What defines an Alpine Gin?

An Alpine Gin is a European gin style originally thought to be developed in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.

A European gin style originally thought to be developed in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, inspired by the heritage of the region in making herbal liqueurs with strong resinous pine and juniper notes with restrained citrus and floral character.

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Alpine Gin is a contemporary spirits style rooted in centuries-old Alpine herbal traditions and the terroir of high-mountain landscapes. Defined by mountain-sourced botanicals—gentian, edelweiss, Swiss stone pine, resinous mountain juniper, spruce tips and alpine berries—Alpine Gin evokes the crisp, herbaceous, piney character of montane forests and alpine meadows. Its flavour profile is clean, cooling and slightly bitter, often shaped by glacial or spring water and seasonal wild foraging.

The style emerged as distillers in Switzerland, Austria, Northern Italy (South Tyrol, Dolomites), southern Germany and the French Alps began combining local botanicals with gin’s juniper backbone in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but the distinct “Alpine” identity crystallised during the craft spirits movement from the 1990s onward. Influences from génépi, gentian liqueurs and regional Kräuterlikör traditions encouraged producers to foreground mountain herbs and sustainable harvesting. Since about 2015 Alpine Gin has grown into a recognised flavour category produced both inside the Alps and by distillers elsewhere reproducing alpine botanical profiles celebrated for its terroir-driven storytelling, small-batch wildcrafting, and a flavour that literally channels high-altitude geology and vegetation into the glass.