Every gin starts with juniper, so that's where we started too. Macedonia has wonderful wild juniper — resinous, piney, a little peppery. Before our first batch we want to know exactly where ours will come from, so we've been asking around: local growers, herb sellers at the market, neighbours around Tikveš who have been picking herbs in these hills for generations. We've also done some scouting ourselves, mostly in the mountains above the Ohrid region and in the hills around Kavadarci and Tikveš. Most of it was walking and looking — which slopes the juniper likes, how exposed they are, how close the nearest road gets. We came back with a short list of places we'd like to return to and a better sense of what we're looking for. We haven't foraged our first harvest yet. When we do, we'll write it down here — the good bits and the mistakes.