When a new gin lands in Singapore, there’s always a story to unpack. The Gardener French Riviera Gin comes with more layers than most: a collaboration between Brad Pitt and the Perrin family, rooted in Provence’s terroir and executed with the kind of obsessive attention to detail you’d expect from both sides.

A Seed Planted in Provence

Gardener Gin launched at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, a fitting debut for a spirit backed by Hollywood and French winemaking royalty. The project itself began during the pandemic, when Pitt and the Perrins,  already partners in Miraval Rosé and later Fleur de Miraval Champagne, finally acted on an idea that had been circling for years: to create a spirit that spoke of the South of France.

For the Perrins, five generations into their stewardship of Château de Beaucastel in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, this wasn’t just a business move. Climate change has been shifting their harvests earlier each year, and diversifying into spirits felt like both an exploration and a safeguard for the future. For Pitt, it was partly about joining friends in the spirits world, but mostly about translating the place he’d fallen in love with into another medium.

Why Gin?

From the outset, they agreed the spirit would not be aged. That ruled out cognac and whisky. It had to be something immediate, expressive, and rooted in terroir. Gin quickly became the obvious choice. And if they were going to make one, it had to be a London Dry — no gimmicks, no shortcuts.

Enter Tom Nichol

None of them knew how to make gin. So they turned to one of the most respected names in the business: Tom Nichol, former master distiller at Tanqueray. Nichol agreed on two conditions, the base spirit must be grain (not grape), and four botanicals were non-negotiable: juniper, angelica root, coriander seed, and liquorice. In return, the Perrins asked for three things: that the recipe be organic, distinctive, and limited to botanicals sourced from their estates at Miraval and Beaucastel.

A botanist catalogued 140 plants growing there. From that list, Nichol created a recipe in just two weeks. The final formula: 13 botanicals, including basil, winter savoury (somewhere between thyme and rosemary), sweet almond, and a heavy emphasis on citrus, lemon, orange, pink grapefruit, and the elusive bigarade, a bitter orange. Seven of the 13 lean citrus, giving Gardener its defining freshness.

The Distillation

Production happens in Charente, Cognac country, where stills sit idle outside cognac season. The process is slow and deliberate. The base, organic summer wheat spirit, is redistilled once before any botanicals are added, purely to give more copper contact and texture. It’s an extra step, more costly, but it delivers the silky, oily mouthfeel Nichol insisted on. After distillation, the spirit rests for a month before dilution to 42% ABV.

How It Tastes

Gardener isn’t loud on the nose. Instead, it opens slowly: citrus zest, a brush of herbs, and juniper sitting firmly but not aggressively in the middle. On the palate, it’s rounded and textured, sweet almond and liquorice softening the edges, basil and winter savoury adding a herbal flicker, with grapefruit and bitter orange lifting everything towards a crisp, lingering finish. It feels less like a punchy craft gin and more like something measured, balanced, and built for timelessness.

A Bottle with Riviera Light

Photo: The Gardener Gin

If the liquid was left to Nichol and the Perrins, the bottle bears Pitt’s fingerprints. Designed by Stranger & Stranger, its colour shifts between green and blue, a nod to the changing shades of the Mediterranean. Vertical ridges catch the light like brushstrokes or sea grass in the wind. The name itself came from a botanical garden planted at Miraval when the first plants were surveyed, the “Gardener” became shorthand for the project, and then the brand.

The logo ties the story together: a sun, vineyards, and lines that represent both creativity and cultivation. In short, it’s as carefully considered as the gin inside.

From Cannes to the World

Gardener Gin isn’t pitched as a celebrity side project, nor as a winemaker’s experiment. From the beginning, the ambition was to sit alongside the world’s established gins. Less than two years in, it’s already present in 42 countries, with France and the US its biggest markets, and Singapore among its first Asian footholds.

Purchase Gardener Gin from Malt & Wine Asia and get a free tote bag, while stock last.

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