Where to distil Rendle’s Original Gin?

The unique recipe for Rendle’s Original Gin was created and perfected by my father, a British officer who served 75 years ago in the Indian Army’s 16th Light Cavalry during WW2. When deciding where to produce our special pink gin, we carefully considered our options.

Given its origins, finding a distillery for our gin in India seemed appropriate – but since we intended initially to launch in North America, logistics were an overriding concern.  Thus we plumped for Uncle Sam, which also had strong connections with my father.

Frank Rendle had a long and affectionate relationship with the United States. From 1962-75 he worked for Ludlow Jute, an American company whose head office was in Needham, Massachusetts. Frank would travel between India and the USA regularly and loved doing business there: he even thought about settling down in the States and particularly on the West Coast where indeed, I still have some first cousins who live in California to this day.

Once the decision was made, we were lucky to find a US distiller whose enthusiasm for faithfully recreating Frank’s recipe, and ability to produce batch after batch of superlative quality, clinched the deal. By sheer coincidence, the Master Distiller has family links to the same region in India as where my Father was stationed, therefore it seemed fitting that he was our man. This is our gin and we hope you will continue to enjoy it as much as we do.

Chris Rendle

The Monsoon - a brief history..

What intrigues me about the provenance of Rendle’s Gin is that my father, Captain Frank Rendle who created the recipe back in 1942, did not set out to make money but simply to produce a gin of exceptional taste and consistent flavour and quality; one that he could confidently share with his friends and fellow army officers. He took great pains to source the finest ingredients and, by adding Hibiscus to achieve its subtle shade of pink, ensured the gin he served was his authentic creation.

It’s peculiar how circumstances can produce interesting moments. For example, on a family holiday at a beach resort in Puri, south of our home in Calcutta, we arrived to find the fridge and freezer broken leaving us only coconut water to drink. Finding it impossible to buy tonic or beer at the time and with only a few cubes of ice borrowed from kind neighbours, the Captain experimented with said coconut water and his own gin to invent a delicious new cocktail: one part Rendle’s Gin to two parts coconut water, stirred and not shaken, with ice and a slice of fresh lime. Deciding on a name, Captain Frank chose Monsoon because, at the precise moment he took the first sip of his delicious creation, the tropical rain was pouring down outside. The monsoon had arrived and so too had Captain Frank’s thirst-quenching discovery.