Juniper Contamination on Alfie Amayo — Operations Portfolio

Discovery Timeline

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Juniper Contamination / Discovery Timeline

Pre-Discovery: Batches Pass Initial QC

Between 11 July and 8 August 2022, four batches were produced using juniper lot PDI-JNP-220620: batch 19 (Gold Gin), batch 20 (Dry Gin), batch 21 (Jason Kong), and batch 22 (Dry Gin). All four passed post-production quality control (QC) and were approved for bottling.

Each batch was compared against a reference bottle pulled from finished goods rather than a fixed baseline. Because the reference changed each time, gradual drift went unnoticed.

Impact and Response

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Juniper Contamination / Impact and Response

Impact

Quarantined

715 bottles

4 batches · 3 products

Recovered

~70%

Highest-volume accounts first

Containment

Cambodia Only

No international shipments

Response time

Same Day

Quarantine on confirmed finding

Once the juniper lot was confirmed as the source on 15 August 2022, the blast radius could be defined. Four batches produced between 11 July and 8 August were affected across three products: Seekers Mekong Gold Gin, Seekers Mekong Dry Gin, and Jason Kong Butterfly Pea Gin. In total, 715 bottles were quarantined.

Root Cause Analysis

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Juniper Contamination / Five Whys Analysis

Root Cause

The immediate cause was a contaminated juniper lot, PDI-JNP-220620, received from a Vietnam-based supplier on 20 June 2022. The more important failure was structural: there was no intake control capable of detecting it before it entered production.

The exact cause of the contamination was never confirmed. Sensory evidence pointed to either microbial activity or oxidative degradation during storage or transit, but no lab analysis was performed. The investigation confirmed the failure was upstream. The juniper arrived compromised. No error was identified in distillery handling, production, or quality control execution.

Structural Improvements

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Juniper Contamination / Structural Improvements

Two structural changes came out of this incident. Each was designed to close a specific detection gap identified during the investigation.

Change 1

Incoming lot validation introduced

Every new botanical lot is now tested at intake through single botanical distillation against the house baseline before it enters production. This moved detection upstream to the point where the ingredient could be rejected before use. Lots that match the baseline are approved. Lots that deviate are rejected.

Change 2

Fixed reference batch introduced for quality control

Each batch is now compared against a fixed, documented reference batch. Before this, batches were compared against a reference bottle selected from available stock, so the comparison point changed over time. This allowed gradual flavour drift to pass unnoticed across multiple batches.

Blast Radius Query

The query below traces lot PDI-JNP-220620 through the database from stock receipt to bottled output.

Systems Context

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Juniper Contamination / Systems Context

Operations Overview

At the time of this incident, Seekers Spirits produced three core gin SKUs on a single 300L still: Seekers Mekong Dry Gin, Seekers Mekong Gold Gin, and Jason Kong Butterfly Pea Gin. Quality control (QC) was my responsibility end-to-end, from tasting through to final release decisions.

The production flow had no formal quality gates upstream of production and no automated monitoring between stages. Ingredients were received and visually inspected, batches were produced, and finished product was assessed at post-production QC before release. Any failure introduced at ingredient receipt had an unobstructed path through every stage before it could be caught.