Okay, so here’s the thing – I’ve got a reasonably good idea. It’s a secret for now, but won’t be for much longer – in fact to those of you with reasonably astute imaginations, the cat’s probably out of the bag already. The idea hinges on being able to find sources of Juniper which are specific to one particular location, and to be honest I’m drawing a little bit of a blank.

Now it’s worth pointing out that as I type this post, I have a rotavap going behind me, I’m planning the details of a trip to Islay, ordering some Vinyl Graphics for our car (more on that later), working out the final details of a business trip to Poland, planning for a visit to the Tanqueray distillery next week, sorting out tastings for the lovely folk at Selfridges and Harvey Nichols, finalising a gin for The Spectator, and there was one more thing as well… oh yes – ‘running a whisky business’. So – it’s probably fair to say that perhaps I’ve not gone as far as I can down the road of investigating each and every producer in the world, or contacting every friendly distiller to try and prise out of them the details of from whence their juniper came, but I’ve had ‘a bit of a crack’.

This, dear readers is where you, and the bounty come in.

Here’s the challenge:

If you can find me a source of Juniper Berries, which come from a specific geographic location (ie – the hills just outside of Townsville, Scotland, or the countryside just to the north of Citytown, Bulgaria), and available in a quantity of 10kg at a time at a reasonable price (£10-20-ish a kilo is about right), I will give you £100 to spend on anything you want in the MoM shop. If you’re boring enough, you can even have it in cash. All of this just for pointing me at somebody who can sell me some Juniper.

There are a few conditions:

1.    The Juniper must be sustainably sourced. You’re not allowed to knacker any bushes in gathering it, or have anyone knacker any on your behalf. This especially applies in the UK. In fact, if it comes from the UK, and is wild, I might get you to plant a few bushes whilst you’re a-gatherin’.
2.    I’ve already got some rather wonderful Juniper from just outside Arezzo, Italy – and also have some from Croatia on the way, so those two locations are ‘taken’
3.    It’s only going to be the first 10 or so locations that I need, so get your skates on

Help me out, you lovely, lovely people. I might even give you a free bottle of the product we end up making from your juniper. I say might. I’ll probably forget.

You can post a comment below, or e-mail me at [email protected]

Cheers,

Ben.