Discover 9 Gins Made with Olives

9 gins made with olives, olive oil, or olive leaves

Bartenders have found all sorts of ways to cram more olives into Martinis, including via olive vermouth, olive oil-washing, adding olive distillate or a big splash of olive brine, and even garnishing with olive-stuffed-olives. 

Some gins come with the olives already inside the bottle, and it seems there are as many ways to put olives into gin as there are into a Martini. Here’s a look at the various brands of olive gin available and what we know about them.

Gins Made with Olives

• Gin Mare

• Gin Mare Capri

• Aegean Eye Gin Olive Gin

• Gin Eva

• Oli' Gin

• Taggiasco Gin

Gin Mare, Gin Mare Capri, Aegean Eyes Gin Olive Gin, Gin Eva, Oli' Gin and Taggiasco Gin

One of the first olive gins to hit the market was Gin Mare that is made at “an old fishing village near Barcelona.” The gin contains the arbequina olive, which they say changes every year and that “each and every distillation is a unique culinary work of art.” 

The gin also contains rosemary, basil, thyme, coriander, green cardamom, and of course juniper. The same brand produces Gin Mare Capri with bergamot and lemons in addition to the olives, rosemary, thyme, and basil. This brand, unlike most others mentioned here, gives us a hint at its production, stating that the botanicals are distilled individually. 

There are several other gins made with distilled olives that may not be imported regularly to the US. The Aegean Eye Gin company makes several gins with botanicals sourced from the Aegean Sea region, including Olive Gin.  

This line of gins, which come in Grecian blue bottles with tall necks, is available in flavors of almond, rose delight, salty lemon, and olive. The website states that the olives come from the Adatepe region, which is in Turkey across the Aegean from Athens. 

Gin Eva, from Mallorca, Spain, is made with Mallorcan juniper berries and comes in several flavors, including bergamot, orange, and old tom style gin. The olive one is named La Mallorquina, for the La Mallorquina variety of olive. The gin also has cilantro (by which they probably mean coriander) in it, and from a reading of the website the juniper, olive, and coriander may be the only botanicals. The website states that the gin is a vintage distillate made each year from fresh olives and juniper. 

Over in France, the brand Manguin En Provence produces Oli'Gin that is made from “several varieties of olives from the Provence terroir.” They also make Oli'Still, “a pure distillation of olives,” and Oli'tchin, the olive aperitif. Tasting notes on the website cite “mainly juniper and olive. Saline and iodine tones. Touches of violet and truffle.” 

The Italian brand Taggiasco Gin contains “an innovative distillate based on Taggiasca olives” that are “a delicacy of the Riviera di Ponente.” They cite a slight brine note to the gin, and additional botanicals of pink pepper and coriander to “fill in the gaps between the juniper and the olive, completing the experience.”

Gin Made with Olive Oil

Staple Gin

The celebrity cook and TV host Rachael Ray popularized the acronym E.V.O.O. for extra-virgin olive oil, so it makes perfect sense that the gin she helped develop with Do Good Spirits in New York’s Catskills region contains EVOO in the mix. Staple Gin is distilled with juniper, coriander, orris root, Castelvetrano olives, bitter orange peel, bergamot orange peel, tarragon, and extra virgin olive oil. 

The brand’s tasting notes specify “juniper is at the forefront,  complemented by vibrant citrus notes of lemon and orange zest, a hint of spice from coriander and a slight earthy sweetness from the tarragon and white flowers. The Castelvetrano olive adds a round mouthfeel with a touch of salinity on the finish.”

Gin Made with Olive Leaves

• Quattro Gatti Olive Grove Gin

• Four Pillars Olive Leaf Gin

Quattro Gatti and Four Pillars Gins Made with Olive Leaves

So far these gins have contained olive flesh and olive oil. These last two add olive leaves into the mix. 

Quattro Gatti Olive Grove Gin is a dry gin distilled with olive leaf, olives, and olive oil “from ancient Italian groves.” The gin contains Italian juniper, artichoke, coriander, lemon peel, and thyme. They describe the nose of the gin as, “forest floor, rain-soaked stone, and the green snap of just-picked vegetables. As it breathes, floral notes emerge, like dusk blooms or greenhouse air.” Romantic! 

The brand also sells a less savory version called Quattro Gatti Gin Classico that contains olive leaf but not the flesh or oil of olives. 

Probably the most popular olive gin besides Gin Mare is Four Pillars Olive Leaf Gin. Four Pillars is made in Australia and the brand famously produces a Rare Dry Gin along with the wine-colored Bloody Shiraz gin. 

For their olive leaf gin variant, they cite many savory Mediterranean botanicals used to give the gin its flavor, despite most of those botanicals being sourced from Australia. They “used three types of cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil and olive leaf tea from the world-class groves of Victoria's Cobram Estate,” along with botanicals including rosemary, lemon, bay leaf, grapefruit, macadamia nuts, coriander, lavender, and lemon myrtle. 

Whether you’re upping your olives in just the gin or olive-maxxing your Martini with every olive format you can find, check out these brands on your next trip to the market.