Will Phillips is making 200 bottles of gin, and he will never make any more. Each one costs £2,850, and £500 from every sale goes to the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation to help protect the elusive snow leopard. If all 200 sell, that comes to £100,000.
Phillips is a restaurateur and chef in Christchurch, a coastal town in Dorset on the south coast of England, and a long-time wildlife campaigner. His Snow Leopard Gin is a small-batch British gin made to raise money for the animal it is named after.
Snow leopards live in the high mountains of Central Asia. They are so hard to find that they are known as the ghost of the mountain, and even researchers who spend years studying them rarely see one. Poaching, habitat loss and conflict with local communities all threaten them.
“The snow leopard is one of the most majestic creatures on earth, navigating the high, silent reaches of the Himalayas, and its existence is under grave threat,” says Phillips. “I wanted to build a project where every single detail, from the liquid inside to the glass itself, reflected the rarefied nature of the animal, while delivering a direct, meaningful impact to protect it.”
His interest goes back to childhood. “It started when I was five years old, watching Virginia McKenna in Born Free. That single film sparked a lifelong obsession with the natural world. Over the years, her tirelessly brave campaigning and the incredible work of Sir David Attenborough became my guiding lights,” he says.
The bottle is inspired by Mount Everest. Specialist glassmakers Nouvel sculpted, engraved and handcrafted it. It is topped with a snow leopard stopper made by lost-wax casting and inspired by the work of British wildlife artist Stephen Rew, who won the foundation’s Wildlife Artist of the Year award in 2019 for his sculpture Writhe. Each bottle comes with a print of Rew’s snow leopard and two bespoke crystal glasses by Stuart Wiltshire, a glass artist whose clients include the British royal family.
Phillips developed the gin with award-winning distiller Martin Jennings of Soapbox Spirits, also in Christchurch. It uses eight botanicals, each distilled separately in traditional copper stills and blended by hand. Several are Himalayan and gathered at altitude. Ginger, known locally as sonth, is harvested in Himachal Pradesh at around 2,300 metres. Turmeric root, or haldi, adds gentle warmth, and mountain-grown coriander seed brings citrus and earthy notes. Kaffir lime, lychee, Nam Doc Mai mango, fresh British coriander leaf and juniper make up the rest. The first 50 bottles also come with an atomiser of distilled leaves from a rare Tibetan juniper, to spray over the glass.
The David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation works across Africa and Asia against wildlife crime and to protect endangered species in the wild.
For anyone not ready to spend £2,850, the gin is also served at Phillips’ restaurant, The Priory in Christchurch, over an ice cube stamped with a snow leopard. Mixologist Mihai Vulpe, whose career includes Shochu Lounge, The Ned and 1 Lombard Street, has created a Snow Leopard Martini for the menu.
“I have always believed that luxury should carry genuine purpose,” says Phillips.
