After moving to Kenya , Australian expat Guy Brennan found a reliable way to beat the heat: enjoying a few gin and tonics in his backyard. It didn’t take long for the former finance professional to make the connection that some of his favorite bottles, though made abroad, relied on locally grown plants. “It’s crazy,” he tells Robb Report.
“We send African botanicals to London for these guys to make gin, only to send it back to us to drink every weekend.” At the time, he remembers thinking, “Why isn’t there a craft distillery in a country of 55 million people?” In 2017, Brennan partnered with Alan Murungi—chef-owner of Sierra Brasserie , a local restaurant and brewery—to start Nairobi Distillers, the nation’s first craft-spirits operation. Its flagship product, Procera Gin , is the keystone of the burgeoning domestic-liquor scene and a tribute to the country’s natural resources.
(It takes its moniker from the scientific name for African juniper, Juniperus procera .) “We embarked on a journey of proselytizing about why it’s as good as, if not better than, other junipers,” Brennan says. “It’s the biggest of the juniper trees, and it’s the only one that lives on the equator.
” Another factor that sets it apart: Procera is distilled using fresh juniper berries instead of the more common dried version, which produces a difference you can taste. “When you dry out something, you’re not just taking out H2O, you’re taking out the soul of tha.