Have you ever had the discussion about “what makes a craft gin, craft”? For me, there are many factors but I’m also interested in the story and the dedication to the gin. Smeaton’s gin is one of those such gins. They use the “Bristol method” which involves distilling each botanical separately, and each batch of distillates varies in maceration length and temperature of distillation to ensure that the very best flavours are achieved. They base their gin on a recipe from 1870 and use eight botanicals, usual suspects juniper, coriander, orange, orris, angelica and liquorice meet cinnamon and calamus – a plant commonly used to help with stomach ailments. Team Smeaton feel that no garnish is needed for their gin as they invest their time into blended it to the perfect taste so nothing is needed to enhance it. Bold claims, so let’s see how it tastes.
Month: December 2018
Ginvent 2018 – The Teasmith gin
Day four is upon us and with that comes The Teasmith gin. Founded in Aberdeenshire, their unique botanical is hand picked tea, which they say gives it a minty, sweet finish. The team behind Teasmith wanted to create a gin which celebrated the area they are from, an ethos that seems to link together the new Scottish distilleries. Did you know that James Taylor from Auchenblae (north east Scotland) was the first man to create a tea plantation in Sri Lanka? Seemingly his work there made the island the tea growing paradise that it is now, and the Teasmith team use loose leaf black Ceylon tea from there. All of that history and tradition is bottled in one of the nicest looking bottles on your shelf. But that aside, how does it taste?
Ginvent 2018 – Manchester Wild Spirit gin
It’s day two here on the #ginvent blog and today we are drinking Manchester Wild Spirit gin. I’ve tried Manchester gin before but not this version. The Wild Spirit gin is inspired by the woodland walks around Manchester. Taking their signature gin as a base, they remove the orange and lemon and replace these with the deeper, herbal notes from sage, thyme, lemon balm and a hint of woodland with silver birch. Manchester gin is fairly synonymous with dandelion and burdock, and this stays in this edition to give it a warming note midway through before a crisp finish.
Ginvent 2018 – 58 Clearly Sloe gin
IT’S DAY ONE OF GINVENT 2018! Here we go again for a third year running. Sorry liver. To kick things off we are trying If you’ve read my blog for the last two years you might have seen my two previous blogs on 58 Gin – their normal gin here and their navy strength here. In those posts you can learn more about 58 Gin, because today we are looking at their sloe gin, and you’d be forgiven for looking past this bottle to try to find the sloe gin. Sloe gins that we know and love are a rich, deep purple colour. This one? Not so much. Rather than seeping sloe berries in a bottle of gin as per the standard method, the berries are included in the distillation process which apparently allows all the flavour, but none of the colour. So, does it actually taste like a sloe gin?