Juniper berries are the small, round, blue-black seed cones of juniper shrubs and trees (genus Juniperus), most commonly Juniperus communis. Though called berries, they are technically fleshy cones. They have a sharp, piney, slightly resinous flavour with citrus and peppery undertones. Their most famous use is as the primary botanical in gin, but they are also used in European cooking — particularly in Scandinavian and Central European cuisines — to season game meats, sauerkraut, and braises.
Juniper is one of the most widely distributed plants in the Northern Hemisphere, growing across Europe, North America, and northern Asia in habitats ranging from coastal scrubland to mountain slopes. The berries take two to three years to mature on the plant, changing from green to their characteristic dark blue-purple colour.
In Australia, juniper is not native but is used primarily as a dried spice and in the rapidly growing craft gin industry.
How it's produced
Most juniper berries used commercially are wild-harvested from natural stands, particularly in southern Europe (Italy, the Balkans, and parts of Spain). Pickers collect the ripe, dark berries by hand or by beating branches over collection sheets — a labour-intensive process given the plants’ prickly foliage and the fact that ripe and unripe berries appear on the same bush simultaneously.
Some small-scale cultivation exists, but juniper is slow-growing and takes several years to produce its first berries, making it less attractive as a farmed crop. After harvesting, berries are dried in the shade to preserve their volatile oils. The dried berries are sold whole or lightly crushed, as grinding releases the aromatic compounds quickly.
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