From Soil to Still: The Master of Botanicals Rethinking Sustainability in Premium Spirits
This Q&A is part of Observer’s Expert Insights series, where industry leaders, innovators and strategists distill years of experience into direct, practical takeaways and deliver clarity on the issues shaping their industries. In the world of premium spirits, few roles influence both flavor and environmental impact as profoundly as the Master of Botanicals—the specialist responsible for sourcing, studying and safeguarding the plants, herbs and fruits that give a spirit its flavor, aroma and character. Few practitioners have pushed that responsibility further than Alessandro Garneri.
Garneri has spent nearly 20 years within the Bacardi portfolio, and since 2017, has led the company’s Global Botanicals Centre in Geneva. His work spans advancing sensory and sourcing technologies while sustaining generations-long relationships with growers. For Garneri, every spirit begins long before distillation. It begins in the soil.
As Master of Botanicals for some of the world’s most recognized spirits—including Bombay Sapphire, St-Germain Liqueur and Martini—he oversees a sourcing ecosystem that stretches across continents, climates and centuries-old agricultural traditions. Coriander seeds dried beneath the Moroccan sun. Lemon peel harvested and hand-peeled in the citrus groves of Murcia, Spain. Angelica root drawn from Saxony, Germany. Each botanical reflects the quiet influence of its origin—soil composition, climate and the precise moment of harvest—natural variables that shape nuance and character, ultimately influencing how an ingredient reveals itself through distillation and, finally, in the glass.
Under Garneri’s stewardship, sourcing is approached as an exercise in long-term custodianship rather than simple procurement. All ten botanicals used in Bombay Sapphire are sourced from certified sustainable suppliers, with close collaboration between Garneri and dedicated farmers and growers to nurture soil health, enhance crop vitality and protect biodiversity. The intention is resilience—ensuring landscapes and livelihoods can endure, season after season, without compromising quality.
That philosophy carries through to production. At Laverstoke Mill—the home of Bombay Sapphire, a former paper mill re-imagined as a working distillery—Garneri works in close partnership with the talent distillation team to embed environmental responsibility into daily practice. The site operates on 100 percent renewable electricity and recycles or converts more than 99 percent of its waste into energy. Even packaging decisions, from the fully recyclable blue glass bottle to sustainably certified paper labels, reflect the same holistic, system-wide consideration.
Following the retirement of longtime Master of Botanicals Ivano Tonutti three years ago, Garneri formally assumed the role across multiple heritage brands within the Bacardi portfolio, bringing continuity to a discipline defined by patience, precision, and trust built over decades.
As growing conditions continue to shift and expectations around transparency and quality evolve, Garneri sits at the intersection of craftsmanship, sustainability and global supply chain strategy. Helping to protect the world’s botanicals—while preserving the character they bring to iconic spirits—is becoming one of the industry’s most complex imperatives, and one that increasingly begins far from the distillery, in the fields themselves.
Every gin begins with botanicals. What does sustainable harvesting mean in the context of global supply chains for ingredients like lemons, coriander seeds and angelica root?
Sustainable harvesting requires a perspective that extends well beyond a single season or shipment, considering the health of a supply chain across decades. For botanicals such as lemons, coriander seeds and angelica root, this means working with growers who actively care for soil vitality, steward water responsibly and harvest at a rhythm the land can sustain.
Within a global supply network, sustainability is underpinned by traceability and genuine partnership. We do not simply source ingredients; we cultivate long-term relationships with growers who recognize that consistency, quality and environmental responsibility are inseparable. All ten botanicals used in Bombay Sapphire come from certified sustainable suppliers, with direct relationships in place to ensure practices such as water management, soil protection and pollinator care are embedded in everyday farming—not reserved for audits. Ultimately, we remain guests of these landscapes, with a responsibility to leave them thriving.
For example, in Spain we work with a family-owned supplier that preserves the traditional craft of hand-peeling lemons across Murcia, Valencia and Andalusia, where citrus is harvested seasonally and processed using artisanal methods that support traceability, quality and long-standing farming livelihoods. In northern Vietnam, our partnership with local producers of cassia bark involves manual harvesting techniques that protect trees during peeling and long maturation cycles of eight to ten years, with nurseries and rotating harvest areas helping ensure forest health and economic resilience for the farming communities who depend on the crop.
How do variations in climate, soil or harvest timing influence the flavor profile of a botanical, and how do you account for that variability when crafting a consistent spirit?
The ultimate objective is consistency in the finished spirit, yet the ingredients themselves are drawn from nature, where uniformity is never guaranteed. Subtle shifts in climate or harvest timing can meaningfully influence how a botanical expresses itself. Temperature variations may alter essential oil concentration, rainfall can affect intensity and harvesting even slightly early or late can move flavor balance in noticeable ways.
Consistency is therefore achieved through understanding and calibration rather than forcing sameness. Each batch of botanicals is carefully assessed for aroma, texture and intensity, with the recipe gently adjusted where needed. The intention is not to eliminate natural variation, but to interpret it with enough precision that the spirit retains its recognized signature character year after year.
What are the most pressing environmental challenges facing regions you source from today? How are local farmers adapting to those conditions?
The pressures differ by geography, yet several themes are increasingly shared: water scarcity, soil depletion and less predictable weather cycles. In many regions, growing seasons are becoming shorter or more erratic, placing strain on both yield and crop quality. In response, suppliers, farmers and growers are adopting more resilient agricultural practices—refined irrigation methods, crop rotation and regenerative soil techniques that help restore fertility and retain moisture. These approaches echo the sustainability principles embedded within operations at our own distillery in Laverstoke, England, where resource efficiency and long-term stewardship guide day-to-day decisions.
Across the broader botanical supply network, environmental challenges continue to evolve and, in some areas, intensify. The Murcia region of Spain, for instance—a key source of lemon peel—faces persistent water scarcity. For many years, local producers have invested in increasingly precise irrigation systems and improved water-management strategies, aiming to conserve every possible drop while maintaining crop health and quality.
What does it take to move from a conventional supply chain to one that is fully certified as sustainable?
A genuinely sustainable supply chain is built on environmentally and socially responsible practices at every stage—a transition that demands time, investment, transparency and mutual trust. Certification itself is not the starting point, but rather the external validation of a much broader and ongoing development process.
A more direct supply chain naturally allows greater oversight of both quality and sustainability. Within Bacardi, the journey of our botanicals is intentionally streamlined: from the field to the Global Botanicals Centre, and onward to our distilleries for processing. This clarity of movement enables closer relationships with our suppliers, growers and farmers and more consistent standards throughout.
The path toward certification has been progressive, beginning nearly a decade ago with early initiatives that gradually strengthened traceability, environmental stewardship and social responsibility. Sustainability is treated not as a single milestone, but as a core pillar of activity—one that balances care for ecosystems and communities with long-term resilience, continuity of supply and the responsibility to leave viable resources for future generations.
The Laverstoke Mill distillery—where you collaborate with Master Distiller Anne Brock—now runs on 100 percent renewable electricity and has achieved a waste recycling rate of more than 99 percent. Can you walk us through the steps it took to reach those benchmarks, and how innovations like vapor infusion, fully recyclable bottles and sustainably certified paper labels became part of the process?
Laverstoke Mill was conceived with environmental design as a guiding principle, reflected in its architecture, which was awarded an “Outstanding” for its industrial design by BREEAM, one of the world’s leading environmental assessments for buildings. Today, the site runs entirely on renewable electricity, while more than 99 percent of operational waste is either recycled or transformed into energy.
Efficiency is also embedded within production itself. The Vapour Infusion distillation method allows delicate botanical aromatics to be extracted with precision while minimising unnecessary resource use. Packaging follows the same philosophy of longevity and circularity: the iconic blue glass bottle is fully recyclable, and labels are produced using sustainably certified paper stocks.
On site, Anne Brock oversees the art and science of distillation, while my focus is on ensuring that the botanicals arriving at the still meet the quality and consistency required for these systems to perform at their best.
Together, these efforts align environmental responsibility with craft so that sustainability is not an addition to the process but an intrinsic part of how the spirit is made.
You work directly with suppliers, growers and farmers around the world. What kinds of support or education have been most effective in encouraging long-term land stewardship and biodiversity?
Working closely with local suppliers, growers and farming communities sits at the heart of how our botanicals are produced. The human dimension—trust, shared knowledge and long-standing relationships—is as essential to quality as the ingredients themselves, becoming an unseen yet vital component in every bottle.
Practical training in areas such as soil stewardship, water management and biodiversity protection often delivers the greatest impact. Yet knowledge alone is not sufficient; it is paired with long-term purchasing commitments that provide financial security, alongside encouragement and support for sustainability certifications that open access to premium markets. Together, education and economic stability help ensure that responsible practices are not simply aspirational, but a realistic and rewarding way for farmers to sustain their livelihoods.
We regard our suppliers, farmers and growers as partners rather than transactional vendors, recognizing that meaningful progress is built through collaboration and continuity.
In Ghana, for example, we provide ongoing annual support to a local NGO and fund the appointment of an agronomist who works directly with a farmers’ cooperative cultivating Grains of Paradise. This partnership reached an important milestone in 2013, when the cooperative produced its first harvest used in the production of Bombay Sapphire. Beyond this primary crop, the agronomist also assists the wider community in developing others, including cocoa, encouraging diversification, strengthening resilience and fostering long-term agricultural sustainability.
Has climate change already affected where or how you source key botanicals? How are you accounting for this long-term?
Growing conditions are undeniably shifting, and our responsibility is to build resilience alongside our partners so that flavor integrity can endure over time. Climate change is already affecting farming communities in tangible ways, from altered rainfall patterns to temperature extremes that influence both yield and crop character.
In response, we work in close and continuous collaboration with local farmers and cooperatives to monitor harvest progression and anticipate challenges early. In some regions, proactive mitigation measures are already being introduced—from adaptive cultivation techniques to adjusted harvesting schedules—with the aim of protecting quality, maintaining availability and supporting long-term agricultural sustainability.
Sustainability is often characterized as a downstream concern. How does it shape decision-making from the beginning when you’re selecting or rejecting a particular botanical?
It is a starting principle rather than a later addition. From the moment a botanical is evaluated, consideration extends beyond flavor alone to include how it is cultivated, whether the land can sustain continued growth and the strength and resilience of the surrounding supply network. If those fundamentals are not in place, the ingredient is unlikely to be pursued, regardless of its sensory appeal.
Although the core botanicals used have remained consistent for decades, the intention of long-term stewardship has always been present. Close, enduring partnerships with growers and suppliers were established not only to secure quality and reliable availability in the present, but to safeguard continuity for the future. In that sense, sustainability has never been a separate initiative—it has been embedded in the way decisions are made, and relationships are built from the outset.
What’s a common misconception people have about “natural” ingredients in spirits, especially in terms of ethical sourcing or traceability?
A frequent misunderstanding is that the word “natural” automatically implies sustainability or ethical practice. In reality, the qualification to use the term on a label can be relatively broad, and it does not, in itself, guarantee responsible cultivation, fair labour conditions, or environmental stewardship.
Consumers often associate “natural” with purity or integrity, yet ingredients described this way may still originate from intensive monocultures, depend heavily on pesticides or lack meaningful transparency within their supply chains. True sustainability is less about terminology and more about verifiable action—clear traceability, responsible agricultural methods and long-term partnerships that prioritize both people and ecosystems.
For producers committed to these principles, the emphasis lies in understanding precisely where ingredients come from, how they are grown and who is involved at each stage. It is this depth of visibility and continuity, rather than a single descriptor on a label, that ultimately defines ethical and sustainable sourcing.
What responsibilities do you believe producers of luxury goods like spirits have in modeling sustainable supply chain practices?
Producers operating in the luxury space inevitably set a benchmark. With that visibility comes a responsibility to lead with transparency, fair value distribution and measurable progress rather than broad intentions alone. Demonstrating sustainable supply-chain practices signals that environmental and social responsibility can exist in harmony with exceptional quality—the two are not competing ideals, but mutually reinforcing ones. By investing in traceability, equitable partnerships and continuous improvement, luxury producers help shape expectations across the wider industry, encouraging higher standards beyond their own brands.
At Bombay Sapphire, this perspective is rooted in a simple principle: acting responsibly toward both people and the planet is not an adjunct to business, but the foundation for building a supply chain that is ethical, resilient and capable of enduring for generations.
From vapor infusion to recyclable packaging, you have integrated sustainability across the production process. Where do you see the next greatest opportunity for innovation?
The next phase is less about radical change and more about deepening and refining what already proves effective. This includes strengthening certified sustainable botanical sourcing, continuing to operate from a distillery designed to exceptionally high environmental standards and powered entirely by renewable electricity and maintaining a waste recycling and energy-conversion rate exceeding 99 percent.
Distillation techniques such as Vapour Infusion will continue to evolve, not only to preserve flavor integrity but also to enhance efficiency and reduce resource intensity. Packaging remains part of this same system-wide thinking, with ongoing exploration of materials and formats intended for circularity and longevity.
This perspective increasingly extends beyond production to the partnerships the brand chooses to form. Greater emphasis is placed on collaborating with organizations that share comparable environmental ambitions and a long-term view of stewardship. In 2025, for example, Bombay Sapphire entered its first global sports sponsorship through the E1 Series—the world’s first all-electric powerboat racing championship—a platform built around reducing environmental impact while investing in ecosystem restoration.
Looking ahead, innovation is expected to focus on incremental yet meaningful gains: deeper supply-chain transparency, lower-impact materials and production methods that further reduce energy and water intensity, all while safeguarding the sensory character that defines the spirit.