N° 01Made in Taiwan

Alishan Cloud

Purple Bud Tea Gin

Our founding bottle. A floral, lightly honeyed gin that revolves around Purple Bud — a rare anthocyanin-rich varietal from the single family garden on Alishan that we source from, with jasmine as a supporting note. Distilled and bottled in Taiwan. The other botanicals — orris root, apricot, and sweet orange — are there only to supplement the tea, nothing more. Our philosophy: juniper is the bass note that makes it a gin; the tea sings on top. We keep the recipe deliberately simple so the leaf stays the centre of the bottle. Each batch is built around 80 kg (176 lbs) of premium leaf and run through the still as a double vapor infusion — the spirit’s vapor passes through the dried tea twice, drawing out flavour and depth a simple steep could never reach.

ABV: 42% ABV
Volume: 700 ml
Batch: Spring pluck MMXXV

Plum blossomJasmineHoneySweet orangeJuniper

$174.99

Currently shipping to California only — write to us to order outside CA.
Free shipping on orders of two bottles or more.

The juniper

The bass note that makes a gin a gin.

Juniperus communis berries take two to three years to ripen, from green to dark blue-purple. By law, a spirit can only be called gin when juniper carries the dominant flavour. We treat it as the bass note — the structural line at the bottom of the chord — with the tea singing the high notes above.

The teas inside

Complementary botanicals

How it tastes

Purple Bud Camellia tea, made from fresh young purple leaves, naturally combines fresh woody aromas, floral notes, and a touch of ripe-fruit honeyed sweetness. Paired with jasmine-scented tea leaves, this forms the spirit's top notes, expressing an even more vivid, fresh floral character. The heart notes feature the crisp woody fragrance of orris root, complemented by the gentle, stone-fruit sweetness of apricot — bridging the composition and leading gracefully into the base. The bass notes are juniper berry and sweet orange: a bold yet refreshing pine aroma, bright citrus, and a subtle peppery warmth. The sweet orange also tempers the bitter finish of the tea leaves, leaving a cleaner, crisper aftertaste.

From the mountain

Alishan · 阿里山

Mountain I · Chiayi County, Taiwan · 23.5°N

"The clouds arrive at four each morning and burn off by ten. Everything that makes Alishan tea what it is happens in those six hours."

Alishan sits above the cloud line in central Taiwan — a range of jagged peaks, cypress forests, and steep terraced gardens that rise through mist to pine. The altitude slows the tea plant’s growth; the cloud cover softens the sunlight; the temperature drop at night locks the oils in the leaf.

The distillery

Longtian Distillery · 隆田酒廠

Guantian District, Tainan, Taiwan · est. 1939

Tucked into the farming country of Guantian District in southern Taiwan, Longtian Distillery (隆田酒廠) is run today by the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation. The site is best known for its sorghum liquor (gaoliang) and a long-standing line of medicinal spirits — but its roots run deeper.

The original works were built in 1939 as the Bantianden Anhydrous Alcohol Factory under the Monopoly Bureau of the Taiwan Government-General. Today it is a working distillery and a small museum: visitors can walk the still floor, see the old fermentation halls, and sample what the site has produced for the better part of a century.

We distil our gin here in small runs, fitted in around their production calendar — every Alishan Cloud bottle leaves the same hall.

Longtian Distillery — copper still detail

The bottle, in pictures

Alishan Cloud Gin — bottle in studio light