Shangri-La Hotels Bee’s Knees Gin
Created by the Shangri-La Hotel Group at their Fort Bonifacio location, Bee’s Knees lays claim to being distilled and bottled on hotel property, inside Shangri-La s own gin lab. General manager John Rice says, “Our journey is not only rooted in providing our guests with the experience they have come to know and love, but to embrace the community and ecosystem that surrounds our environment. In this case, we pay tribute and uplift the talent already present in the Filipino bar community. What better way to do so than to bottle that in a Filipino-raised spirit?”
Out of all the spirits, gin has a remarkable ability to carry nuanced flavours and capture the terroir of a place, which, combined with laissez-faire regulations defining what the spirit is, and the speed and small physical footprint of distillation, has primed it for the global moment in the spotlight that it is currently enjoying.
Asia is where this versatile spirit really meets its match, where hundreds of different locales with their thousands of indigenous botanicals have expanded the scope of gin beyond recognition. From malunggay oil and gunpowder tea, to orchids and Buddha s hand, anything goes when it comes to Asia s vast pantry of herbs, fruits, flowers and spices.