Pink Gin Is A Thing & We Had No Idea

When we first heard of pink gin, we couldn't believe that Wölffer Estate Vineyard had been quietly producing it from its own rosé for several years. After all, it combined one of our favorite spirits with one of our favorite color trends. Then, we made another discovery — there's a whole world of pink gin we had no idea about.

While Wölffer's gorgeous bottle remains the only one made from distilled rosé, there's a tradition of pink gin that actually goes back hundreds of years. It started as a drink for British sailors. Made by combining gin and Angostura bitters, it was supposed to fight seasickness. Similar to gin and tonics, another drink that started out as a medicinal treatment, people came to like the taste and kept drinking it once they were back home in England.

Today, pink gin is made from all kinds of ingredients. In addition to many made the traditional ways, others are distilled with pink flowers, berries, and even rhubarb. While there is a whole range available in Europe, most that you can buy in the U.S. are imported or only available online from websites that specialize in importing British spirits. That might make it hard for us Americans to get our hands on currently, but we can only hope that, like the Beatles before it, pink gin is poised for a good old-fashioned British invasion. Our gin and tonics need it.