European cooking has a long tradition of using fresh herbs and spices that are geographically available. Fresh herbs are an essential part of French cooking, and fresh paprika is essential to Spanish cooking.
It's the spices that don't grow in Europe that get neglected for cooking. I have a suspicion that gin distillers are a bit more discerning in the freshness of their spices though.
I used to do home distilling, and I made gin from old juniper once and it was foul, you really need botanicals that are as fresh as possible.
Also, especially for the bigger distillers, consistency in your product is important, so they'll likely have quite thorough sourcing for their botanicals, rather than just buying them from a local wholesaler.
I had a friend who tried making his own gin a few times. Since I have (far too many!) juniper bushes/trees on my property, I gave him some fresh juniper berries to try.
The resulting gin smelled absolutely amazing, but tasted like ass!
He still let’s the core ingredients shine and doesn’t “over spice” but somehow manages to take you on a road that begins with a fiery amuse bousche and ends the meal with numbing peppercorns sprinkled atop a fragarent orange slice.
Before refrigeration tech, salt and spices are one of the best ways to make food last longer in a hot environment.