An Enduring Love Affair
– Karen, Founder of Botanikos
The Botanikos Story
The story of Botanikos starts on the South Island of New Zealand in a town called Timaru, having just said a sad goodbye to my family and hometown of Melbourne. I had secured my first academic position and was excited to unite my great loves: research, science and natural therapies. The weeks flew by and on one particularly demanding day, feeling homesick and exhausted, a nursing colleague took pity on the lone “Aussie”. Lounging on the veranda of her serene Canterbury Plains property, she administered my medicine in a twinkling Collins glass…
This was my first Gin and Tonic, but most certainly not my last!
Fast-forward to 2018 in an overgrown herb garden at my holiday house in the Victorian seaside town of Rye, where I am taming a magnificent specimen of rosemary bush. Always endeavouring to live an environmentally sustainable lifestyle, I found myself pondering: What can I do to honour all of these offcuts?
I looked down at the sweating glass of my afternoon G & T, and with that, the Botanikos Rosemary Simple Syrup was born!