Esker Gin

Posted on February 7, 2017December 12, 2023 by jennyinbrighton

Note: I emailed Esker gin asking for a sample for the blog and they were kind enough to send me some. As always, you’ll know if I don’t like it

Scotland might well be best known for its whisky, but the Scottish craft gin scene is booming (WSTA conveniently put together a tasting map of Scotland for anyone looking to visit some of their distilleries). Esker Spirits is one of these new distilleries set up in October 2015 and is the first in Scotland to use silver birch sap as a botanical. Esker takes it name from “a long ridge, typically having a winding course, created by a glacier” – a sight reflected in their local geography in Royal Deeside, home to Balmoral Castle nonetheless. Developed over a two year period (with lots of experimentation) Esker settled on a recipe of over a dozen botanicals – including their silver birch sap tapped from the Kincardine Castle Estate which adds a touch of sweetness to the gin.

I’m in love with the label of this gin – simple, clean and elegant. Designed to reflect their local area, its a modern look with a nod to tradition and heritage and including mountains, rivers, castle and juniper berries. Popping the cork, it’s a lovely smell that comes out. Reminiscent of the outdoors – not in a heavy, oaky way, but in a fresh meadow kind of way. The juniper leads the way once it is opened up in the glass. Mixed with a spash of water (tap, not fresh Scottish mountain water unfortunately) it is well balanced with flavours – a slight peppery taste at the front of the tongue and a very smooth finish. A savoury, floral note reaches the back of the nose (can floral be savoury?). Either way, it’s good.

Pouring out a proper measure and mixing it with tonic (sadly all I have in the house is Tesco), this caused me to say “ooh?” and look at the glass I had just put down. It is full of flavour without being over the top. You can certainly get hints of juniper and a certain freshness – and a sweet tinge to it which comes from the silver birch sap. I was worried it would be one of those gins where they add a wacky botanical and it ends up a bit grim, but I like this a lot.

Steve from Esker saw how much I hate orange and said that whilst garnished with orange zest is nice, he also recommends grapefruit or rosemary – but more importantly also says that they don’t enforce a certain serve and it’s up to the consumer to decide how they like it. YES! A real bugbear is a brand trying to enforce their way of serving your gin to you. So, having gone and bought a grapefruit especially for this moment, I add a small piece of zest and this highlights the citrus notes – plus the smell from it adds another dimension to the tasting experience. I also can see rosemary working well if you prefer a more savoury finish.

Esker Gin seems to be tricky to find outside of Scotland at the moment, but you can get it online from The Good Spirits Co for £36 a bottle (although out of stock at the time of writing – don’t worry, they’re in the process of moving to larger facilities to keep up with demand). I like this, I would definitely pay £36 for it. Plus the bottle will look beautiful on your shelf. You can also get in touch with Esker on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Have you tried Esker gin? Let me know your thoughts over on Twitter and Instagram.

Cotswolds Gin

Posted on January 28, 2017December 12, 2023 by jennyinbrighton

Note: I emailed them for a sample for the blog and Zoe kindly replied and sent one to me. Then sent me another one when the first got lost in the post. But as always, if I don’t like it, you’ll know about it.

Cotswolds Gin hails from the Cotswolds (funnily enough) but is the brainchild of native New Yorker Dan Szor. They’re committed to keep it local – the barley and malt is produced within a 50 mile radius for their whisky and the botanicals for the gin are locally sourced. They produce a huge range of products now – their dry gin, a hedgerow gin, a barrel aged gin, espresso martini, sherry, cream liqueur… The list goes on. The Cotswolds Dry Gin mixes lavender, bay leaf, grapefruit, lime and black pepper. I’m hoping for something full of flavour and hopefully well balanced – otherwise it will be awful!

Twisting the cap off you get a citrus smell with a spiced tinge. Good start. Pouring it into the glass releases a great smell into the room. I only have a 50ml sample so I’m just trying it straight with no water, and boy does that wake you up. The freshness from the citrus meets a small kick of spice at the tip of the tongue. Mixed with a good measure of Fevertree tonic, this is different. The spiced tones come forward and balance out the zestiness from the citrus. It’s balanced but full of flavour. This tastes nothing like I expected it to, and I like it. Enough flavour to make you interested and get your tastebuds going, but not over the top or chemically. I’m a fan of this. Normally I’d add a lemon wedge, but as they use lime as a botanical I throw a slice in. The lime enhanced the citrus whilst toning back the spice. Whilst I like this, I think perhaps on its own is just as nice!

A bottle of Cotswolds Dry Gin is currently on Master of Malt for £34.95. I think this is pretty fair, especially if you want something livelier to add to your collection. They’re available to contact on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Have you tried Cotswolds Gin? Let me know your thoughts on Twitter and Instagram.

Anno Kent Dry Gin

Posted on January 19, 2017December 12, 2023 by jennyinbrighton

My aunt got me a cracking Christmas present: tubes of gin. Specifically Chilgrove gin (already tried, review here), Mason’s Gin (coming soon) and Anno Kent Dry Gin.

Anno Gin hails from Kent (funnily enough) and I’ve seen them in various places but never given them a try. At Anno, they blend traditional botanicals with locally sourced lavender from the award winning Downderry Nursery, elderflower, rose hips and samphire. I’m expecting floral and slightly… salty? It certainly sounds like it packs in the flavour; the tasting notes on their website says it starts with juniper, moving to citrus and sweet spice – a flavour that grows as you drink it. Apparently it is “bold and long” (oo-er) with leafy herbal notes. It’s blended with hops so I’m expecting it to be slightly earthy amongst the other flavours.

Cracking open the tube (I should point out I have a bit of a blocked nose) it certainly smells floral and herbal. Tinges of walks in fields, light and fresh. I have a 50ml sample so I’m going to go for the Ginvent style of tasting – no mixing it with water. In the glass it smells headier and the juniper becomes more prominent. It’s slightly silky on the tongue, the taste certainly grows. Slightly sweet at the front, developing to a bolder flavour at the back of the tongue. I can also detect a slight saltiness which contrasts – and compliments – the woodier tones.

Alas, I only have a smidge of Fever Tree left, so it’s back to Tesco tonic. Sadly, the tonic slightly drowns the gin, but hints of flowers come through. With tonic, I can’t sense the soft spicy notes, but it is fresh and citrusy and a great post-run pick me up! (Training for my 10k run is going great btw…). Throwing in some lemon slices, it helps to bring the citrus flavours to the front. I’m not overwhelmed by this, but I think if I mixed it with a drier Fever Tree tonic it would help enhance the flavours.

A bottle of 43% Anno gin is currently £31.20 on Master of Malt which is pretty fair considering it’s from a microdistillery (Kent’s first in 200 years nonetheless). I’m certainly going to give this another go. You can get in touch with Anno via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Have you tried Anno? What do you think? Let me know on Twitter and Instagram.

6 O’Clock Gin

Posted on January 12, 2017December 12, 2023 by jennyinbrighton

Note: I emailed 6 O’Clock gin for a sample for the blog and they replied by sending me a whole bottle. However, if this gin is grim, I’ll be honest about it. Although I am very happy that their version of a sample is 70cl.

I’ve known about 6 O’Clock gin for a while, and strangely have tried their tonic but not the gin. – the tonic, btw, is very good as well. Packaged in a lovely blue bottle with some simple branding, I’m a fan. They have a few gins to their range, the London Dry bottled at 43%, a sloe gin and a damson gin – as well as a whole range of liqueurs to complete your cocktail cabinet. Their gin is made in a classic copper still which is solar powered, making this a carbon neutral gin – important considering the amount of gin that is produced (and that I consume). Key botanicals juniper, orris root and angelica are joined by Winter Savoury (a Mediterranean herb akin to rosemary and thyme), elderflower and orange peel. They think the perfect serve is: gin, served with two or three times tonic. Correct. No poncy suggestions, but instead a nice note from them: “Forget the mango slices rolled in pepper corns, no need for sprigs and hold the fruit salad; our gin does the talking.” We know from the colour changing adventures of Ginvent that I’m not a huge fan of gimmicks so let’s see how this gin stands up on its own.

There’s no wax seal for me to battle with today, which is probably best after yesterday’s bouldering adventure which today means moving my arms too much hurts quite a lot. The bottle comes with a glass cork, a terrifying noise when you don’t know this is happening! Haven’t broken anything. Just the lid. The open bottle releases a string citrus smell – always a winner in my books – which fades slightly in the glass. Mixed with a dash of water, the juniper smell becomes more prominent. This is very easy to drink – I worry I drowned it in water. Definite taste of juniper and a hint of floral from the elderflower. They say on the bottle that it is “strikingly smooth” and they aren’t wrong. This is very easy to drink.

Mixed with some fevertree (treated myself on the way home), the taste of the gin is almost lost from the bitterness of the tonic. I can’t taste any gin. There’s hints of flowers and citrus, but it’s slightly lost in the tonic (I tried this as a 1:2 and 1:3 mix). A couple of slices of lemon bring this to life and highlight the citrus tones to it. I imagine mixing it with an elderflower tonic would produce similar results and highlight the floral notes. Personally I’m not sure this has enough flavour to make it stand out, but this is rather nice to snuggle up with on a snowy rainy evening. Simple, but done well. I think this is their aim, no gimmicks, no fancy flavours, just a quality gin. A bottle of this in your home could be used for many things – I think this will work well in baking as well as cocktails.

At time of writing, a 70cl bottle of 6 O’Clock gin is available on Master of Malt for £24.10 – but is listed on their website as £35. Personally for me £35 is a bit more than I would pay, but for £25 I’d certainly grab a bottle.

You can find 6 O’Clock gin over on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. What do you think about 6 O’Clock? Let me know over on Twitter and Instagram.

Dizzy Gull, Brighton

Posted on January 8, 2017January 8, 2017 by jennyinbrighton

It’s a Sunday. Therefore we needed a plate of roasted foods for lunch. So after seeing a number of tweets about Dizzy Gull‘s food at the Brighton Beer Dispensary, we meandered up the road to get some grub. They start serving at 12, so thanks to the fear that good Brighton eateries have instilled in me in that if you haven’t booked, you won’t get a seat, we arrived at 12.01pm to get a table. We were literally the only people in there for at least 45 minutes. They don’t take bookings, but we were there until gone 2pm and there were plenty of tables, so don’t worry about rushing down there.

Luckily for me, the very nice lady behind the bar was very helpful in guiding me towards a beer, and I was soon handed a Brighton Bier and we settled ourselves in to the back corner with Connect 4. Then we ordered one beef roast, one Dizzy burger, beerkins and three cheese fries (to clarify: this is one portion of fries with three cheeses on it, not three portions of cheese fries). In hindsight, this was too much. The beerkins were crisp and salty when they arrived, deep fried in batter and served with mustard mayo. As a gherkin lover, I was a fan. The boy isn’t such a gherkin fan but agreed they were pretty good. Sadly, our food arrived super quickly so these got abandoned and as soon as they got cold they were just a bit oily. The beef roast was delicious. As usual in a pub roast, the potatoes weren’t the best; but the beef was tender, the Yorkshire was fluffy and the accompanying veg was good. My main issue was cauliflower cheese. I don’t like this at the best of time and I don’t appreciate cheese in my gravy.

The boy’s burger looked yummy, and as he picked it up juice and sauce came dripping out and covered the plate – perhaps a second plate is needed for people like me who actually put their food down during a meal. His review was “it’s structurally sound, tasty and attractive”. Despite the amount of sauce that dripped out, the bun held itself together and the chips were well seasoned and fluffy – again, like the roasties they could be crispier.

The chips carried on with the three cheese fries. Dripping in smoked applewood, Brighton blue and Sussex charmer they were really yummy. For the four I managed to eat. Sadly we grossly over estimated the amount of food we wanted as the first meal of the day. But these lasted way past our meals and a few more overly competitive games of Connect 4 and were still pretty yummy when cold.

We ended up somehow paying £42 – £12 for the roast (very reasonable), £10 for the burger (very good), £5 fries and £4 beerkins, which left £10.40 for two beers and a lemonade. Would we go back? Yes. The food was nice and freshly cooked, the staff were super lovely and it wasn’t rammed so we didn’t have to fight for space or yell to hear each other. Plus they have board games so it’s a winner in my books.

Have you been to Dizzy Gull? What do you think? Let me know on Twitter and Instagram!

Ginvent 2016 – Herno Sloe Gin

Posted on December 18, 2016December 12, 2023 by jennyinbrighton

I’ve been wanting to try Hernö gin for a while, and I’m excited that today’s Ginvent offering is their sloe gin. Hernö is the most awarded gin in Europe – and has been for the last three years. When they launched in 2011, they were Sweden’s first dedicated gin distillery, and five years later now produce four gins – their regular 40.5% gin, the 57% navy strength, an Old Tom gin and a Juniper Cask. Plus now the sloe gin.

It smells syrupy and sweet – but not in a sickly way, nice and fruity. In the glass, a wintery and Christmassy smell comes forward – perfect for this chilly Sunday night. Straight up, it is fairly sugary and punchy, a definite berry flavour coming on to the tongue. Because it’s sloe gin, the best thing to do with it would be to make a sloe gin fizz yeah? Mixed up with lemon, sugar, soda and a splash more gin – it’s nice. The tart berry flavours and syrupy texture cut through the tart lemon juice. It’s not too cloying or sweet, but definitely is quite syrupy. Much like how I thought Pinkster gin would be better suited to a hot summer day, sloe gin is definitely a proper winter drink.

The Sloe Gin is available on Master of Malt for £38.95 and you can find Hernö on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Are you enjoying Ginvent so far? Catch up on it here and let me know what you think on Twitter and Instagram.

Ginvent 2016 – Elephant Sloe Gin

Posted on December 10, 2016 by jennyinbrighton

It’s day 9 and we’ve hit another gin I’ve already tried (there’s only about four in the whole of Ginvent) – it’s Elephant Sloe gin! I got this as a sample with my Craft Gin Club delivery a few months back and it is lush. Rather than entirely repeat myself you can check out the full taster here.

Catch up on Ginvent here.

Elephant Sloe Gin

Posted on October 16, 2016December 12, 2023 by jennyinbrighton

I got my sloe gin with my Elephant gin – bloody love this month’s Craft Gin Club delivery. After the joy that is Elephant gin (and you can read more about that here), I’m excited to try their sloe gin. After ripping off the plastic wrapping (thank god for long nails) I unpop the cork and the smell is sweet and syrupy. A slight sourness comes through so the smell isn’t overwhelming. Slightly Christmassy. Initially dark in colour, when held up to the light it’s a rich amber.

In the glass the juniper smell is strong, then I notice the label says “compared with other sloe gins, relatively low sugar content paired with higher alcohol volume” – it’s 35% which is higher than the average 15-30% (although EU laws say it must be a minimum of 25%). On the tongue when straight it’s very syrupy and sweet, with a strong kick of gin. Mixed with a touch of water it mellows out and produces a rich berry flavour. The juniper isn’t strong when you drink it, tasting slightly more of Chambord as a fruity mixer. Watered down slightly it doesn’t even have a taste of alcohol about it, but I am now obsessed with the idea of it being Christmas.

I don’t usually drink sloe gin with tonic, so instead I’m mixing it into a sloe gin fizz (one of my favourite cocktails in case you’re wondering). 50ml of sloe gin, 25 ml of lemon juice, a teaspoon of caster sugar and topped up with soda water. Nom nom. It’s soft and gentle, the flavours don’t overpowering anything else in the cocktail. Admittedly the recipe I followed called for an extra shot of gin, and perhaps this would have given it that little extra punch it perhaps needs (for my taste buds anyway). The bitterness of the gin and lemon juice is perfectly balanced with the sweetness from the sugar. Perfectly quaffable. I love sloe gin.

A 50cl bottle of Elephant Sloe gin is £31.95 on Masters of Malt (at time of publishing). I’d invest, now the winter and the dark nights are drawing in

Elephant gin are on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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Kuala Lumpur – part two

Posted on October 15, 2016December 12, 2023 by jennyinbrighton

After our first few days in Kuala Lumpur, we awoke early on Saturday morning with Emma’s arrival and a morning spent chilling by the pool. Eventually we got ourselves ready for the day and headed to The Loaf for breakfast/brunch/lunch. Great juices and eggs benedict on a two inch thick piece of toast was rather scrummy. With full bellies we jumped on the train to Masjid Jamek – the oldest mosque in the city…to find it was closed to the public and surrounded by building work. So instead of going in we wandered around to the confluence of the rivers Gombek and Klang – Kuala Lumpur literally means “muddy estuary”. Crossing this took us to Freedom Square, home of the I <3 KL sign. Fun to take photos with, then head into the City Gallery for a £1 entry fee. Downstairs has a small but interesting display on KL’s history and formation, but the winner is upstairs for an awesome multimedia display with a 3D map of the city. Outside the gallery in the square is a bloody great flagpole and buildings ranging in style from Persian to Tudor. It’s super easy to wander from here to the Old Market and China Town from here. China Town brings the delights of fake designer goods, cheap clothes and street food.

Unfortunately we were poor on time so we jumped on the train and headed to the Petronas Towers. Bloody hell they are big. Surprisingly hard to find the entrance though. Hidden within a shopping mall up some stairs, along a corridor, round a corner and down an escalator you find a very unassuming lobby. It’s highly recommended to prebook as tickets on the day sell out fast (it’s around £17 per person). They are super efficient, you get a coloured lanyard and are ushered up to the skybridge on the 41st floor. Given 10 minutes to admire the view (you’re pretty high up) and take a few (hundred) selfies, you get put back in the lift and taken up to the 83rd floor. Then, because that’s not high enough, up you go again to the 86th floor. It’s proper high. Through the binoculars you can clearly see the huge gold statue outside the Batu Caves. It’s insane. You really are very high up. At the bottom of the towers is a large park with fountains – I highly recommend sitting here after dark. Not only do the towers look stunning at night, but the fountains also turn into a coloured light show. We sat here until our empty stomachs forced us to move – dinner in the food hall of the mall. After dinner we retired to the roof top bar (standard).

Sunday came with a very early start as Jo headed back to Hanoi (not that any of us were awake to see her go) and the remaining three of us headed to the Bird Park – the world’s largest free flying aviary. It was very hot. We went the scenic route via running across an eight lane road, crossing a bridge at the National Museum and visiting mini Stonehenge in the Astronomy Centre. The Bird Park is huge, and beware of bird’s pooing on you. You won’t be able to get it off all day. Even when a kind lady offers you baby wipes. Basically, there’s lots of fancy birds in aviaries and walking loose in the ground are peacocks and storks. I forgot I really don’t like birds. But it was a nice afternoon, and the walk through the botanical gardens (via the deer park with a lack of deer) is worth the heat. Being sweaty and sticky and tired, we jumped in a taxi back to the hotel and drove past Masjid Negara (National Mosque). Whilst we completely failed on this holiday to actually visit a mosque, the calls to prayer sounded out as we drove past. With a few hours to go until Emma’s overnight train, and our morning departure, we took one last opportunity to have a splash in the pool before eating a mountain of sushi. Fresh salmon and prawn nigiri, chicken satay, vegetable tempura and more filled our bellies before saying goodbye to Emma and enjoying one final cocktail on the roof top bar ahead of Monday’s flight to Kuala Terengganu and our beach resort!

Hi. I’m Jenny and I like running…

Posted on September 10, 2016 by jennyinbrighton

If you had told me seven weeks ago that I would be sat writing this post at 10:30am on a Saturday morning after smashing my run and saying the sentence “I enjoy running”, I would have laughed so hard. Jenny from seven weeks ago (and frankly the last 20 years) hasn’t exercised – or indeed moved – more than necessary. But being in the Fast Forward 15 mentoring scheme and spending time with my mentor – the absolutely incredible Juliet Price – has made me realise that I can do a lot more than I thought I could. Admittedly when I agreed to the 10k run I was less than excited. But I gained some weight at the end of 2015 and I’ve been a bit down about it so been wanting to get my shit together and get healthier. I also worked out that with everything going on, I’m going to get a bit stressed. Big thing to say right now: I suffer from anxiety. I don’t really talk about it because it’s not a big deal and I can deal with it but I’ve noticed it happening more frequently in the last few months. I know that running helps. And I want to get on top of this and stop it from happening. So I started running.

I was reluctant to write about my training, because it’s not like I’m training for a marathon. 10k is not that far. 6.2 miles to be precise. When I signed up to the race, I put my estimated time as 1 hour 45 minutes. I have no idea how long it is going to take me, but I’m determined to run the whole way. I don’t care how slowly I do it. I’m going to. But today I had a break through.

I went out last night and had a lot of wine (because I’m taking training seriously). Then I got woken up early thanks to the Co-op moving things around and someone drilling. I decided to go for a run because it was early and gloomy and I thought the Brighton sea front would be empty. Boy was I wrong. People everywhere because not only was the Sport and Exercise Show setting up on Hove Lawns, but also I forgot they hold ParkRun along the seafront on Saturday mornings. I nearly turned round and went home. But I was listening to the exercise episode of the Guilty Feminist podcast and forced myself on. My last run comprised of three 5 minute runs and I could just about do it. Today was an eight minute run, five minute walk, eight minute run. And I did it. Thanks to ParkRun people applauding me, seeing so many people of all ages, sizes and speeds running together pushed me on, and my brain finally clicked into place. The guest on The Guilty Feminist podcast was Jessamyn Stanley and hearing her talk about empowerment and owning your body was incredible. I paraphrase, but essentially she said you rarely stop and look at your body and appreciate it for what it is. My legs aren’t fat, they are strong and carry me and do so much. She said that as I was thinking of stopping for a break. Carried right on. Sure, if I lose a little weight from this then great. But right now I’m just in awe of the fact that I can do this.

I think this has been the main change that’s come from running. At the beginning, I was struggling to breathe and even run for 30 seconds. Now I can run for eight minutes. I mean yeah, sure, I have a long way to go. And seven weeks ago I thought that this would be impossible. Now, I can totally do this. I feel strong. I feel good. I can take on anything. Challenges at work, sure. All my mentoring work, no problem. Helping launch Brighton Girl magazine, easy.

I’m using a couch potato to 10k app by Zen Labs which takes you on a fourteen week training programme with increasing interval training. This instantly was way better than my running attempts in the past where I’ve forced myself to run until I was tired, then walk for ages and hurt for days. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I REALLY hurt after my first few runs, now I’m fine. My recovery times are improving, I’m not as sweaty. I still look like a tomato for ages, but considering my skin is the colour and transparency of a ghost that’s to be expected. I used to listen to music, then once I started running for longer than three minutes I noticed this was holding me back. Music gives you a sense of time. You end up begging for the song to finish so you can get this over with. So I swapped to The Guilty Feminist podcast. Not only does this make you lose track of time so it’s easier to just run, it’s also hilarious (I nearly fell over last week from laughing so hard) and empowering. Highly recommend this to everyone.

So that ends this rambling blog post. Coming home I just felt like I needed to get this all out. Thank you to everyone that’s putting up with my photos and complaints on social media, and to everyone supporting me and cheering me on when I’m down. I’m going to keep going. If anyone wants to join me for a run, tweet me! After a few break downs, a few breakthroughs and one moment of “shall I just sit here and cry” I can finally say:

Hi. My name is Jenny and I like running.

On that note, you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram. Let me know about your experiences running and we can cheer each other on with faux inspirational “you can totally do it” type things.

Jenny in Brighton

I'm Jenny and I live in Brighton

brighton girl