It’s March and my Craft Gin Club box arrived and I’m actually opening it vaguely on time! This month’s gin is from York Gin – and whilst I’m not usually keen on anything that involves lots of floral botanicals, I’ve never had a dud from them so fingers crossed! If you know *anything* about York gin, you’ll know just how important the city is to their gin – from the historical behind their botanicals to the design of the label. This gin is no exception. Continue reading
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Graveney Festive Fayre gin
Before you even start, yes this is late. This is a look at December’s Craft Gin Club offering. But with #GinPalsGinvent and trying to not open new bottles of gin until some nearly empty ones had been cleared, I’m only just getting round to this. ANYWAY. This is Graveney gin’s Festive Fayre gin from Tooting in South London.Highclere Castle gin
Note: I was sent a bottle of Highclere Castle gin to try, but all thoughts below are completely my own
If you’re a fan of period drama, you might have seen Downton Abbey and so will be familiar with Highclere Castle. Now, I have to admit that isn’t really my cup of tea, but growing up in Hampshire I knew of the place. Well known for world class entertainment, they wanted to produce (in their words) the finest gin in the world. So, no pressure there.
Hortus Gin
If you have a TV, you’ll have seen Lidl’s adverts doing the whole “You can buy X from Tesco for £Y, or you can come to Lidl and buy A, B, C, D and E for less than £Y”. One of those adverts features their own brand gin, Hortus. Developed with Kevin Love, a Michelin-starred chef (and prodige of Heston Blumenthal), Hortus ranked higher than big brands Gordon’s and Thomas Dakin in a blind taste test run by Good Housekeeping Institute (coming 7th overall) and winning a silver medal at the ISC 2016. They use botanicals such as lavender, lemon verbena, rosemary and cubeb in their London Dry gin, as well as producing some limited edition seasonal variations. For most people, craft gin comes at a price too high to drink all the time, so if this really tastes as good as some craft gins but for a fraction of the cost, this could be why it is proving so popular with gin drinkers.
One ‘Sage and Apple’ Gin
It’s my favourite time of the month again – it’s a Craft Gin Club delivery! This month we received a special edition of One Gin which features the sage we know and love from their original gin, but with the addition of russet apples, along with a host of goodies including Lixir tonics, Gusto ginger and chipotle, cucumber Dash water, lemon and juniper Divine chocolate, and a bag of Chika’s chilli and lime nuts. If we were playing Only Connect and these were the clues, the connecting factor would be “ethical and organic brands” (ok, Victoria Coren Mitchell would phrase it better). One gin works with charity partner The One Foundation who pledged to raise £20 million for clean water projects by 2020 – to date they have already raised a staggering £19.3 million. A bottle of One gin gives 10% of its profits to the charity which currently works in Kenya, Malawi, Ghana and Rwanda and features botanicals such as juniper (obviously), cassia bark, nutmeg, lemon peel, and sweet and bitter orange peels alongside the fresh sage and russet apples that give this gin its name. Bottled at 43%, it has a kick to it and they say it tastes fresh and crisp.
Chase GB gin
Because I am very lucky, I have lots of lovely friends and today I’m drinking Chase Distillery‘s GB gin. Chase Distillery came about after potato farmer William Chase had enough of supermarkets pushing up prices and feeling detached from his customers, so used his potatoes to make crisps. Tyrrells crisps to be precise. Whilst making these, he stumbled upon vodka made from a potato spirit, and thought that seemed like something fun to experiment with. Flash forward four years and they released their first batch of vodka. Ten years on, they have built a new distillery on their farm in Herefordshire making their own vodka, which in turn is the base for their gin. They use 10 botanicals to make their vodka shine, including juniper (obvs), cinnamon, ginger, almond, cardamom, cloves and lemon. Chase have a big focus on sustainability, they create energy from a bio-boiler using orchard prunings, their potato waste fertilises the fields and feeds their cows and grow many of their fresh ingredients themselves. So, how does it taste?
Ginvent 2018 – An Dúlamán Gin
Today is lucky number 13 of Ginvent and today we are trying a gin I only heard of recently, with a cracking bottle design. An Dúlamán Gin comes from County Donegal in Ireland, Sliabh Liag Distillery is the first distillery from Donegal for over 175 years and their main botanical is local seaweed. Five types of seaweed to be precise. This ties into the brand via the name – Dúlamán comes from an Irish folk song about a conversation between two seaweed collectors. Basically. They REALLY like seaweed over there.
Ginvent 2018 – Corner 53 Cherokee Gin
I am excited for today. During Gin Foundry’s summer series, we had an evening with Corner 53 who were a bunch of lovely guys that made some great gin so I am looking forward to revisit this. My favourite that evening was their viking strength gin (and by favourite I mean we drank a lot of it and I hated my life the next day). Today however we are drinking their Cherokee gin which is inspired by famous bourbon Jack Daniels. Unable to replicate their maple-charcoal filtration process, instead the team add maple syrup to their list of botanicals and balance the sweetness this brings with sarsaparilla (an earthy vanilla note).
Ginvent 2018 – Campfire Navy Strength gin
Last year we were able to try Puddingstone Distillery‘s Campfire London Dry gin, and today we have another Navy Strength gin. Their Navy Strength uses the same botanicals as their London Dry including roasted hazelnuts, golden berries and rooibos tea, but with a small tweak to increase the juniper profile. The ABV is also increased from 42% to 57% which is quite the leap, yet Puddingstone say that it is still smooth and easy to drink. Let’s put that to the test shall we?
Tipsy Tart Lemon and Elderflower Gin Liqueur
Up next in the series of “I have lovely friends that buy me gin” is a gin liqueur. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Jenny doesn’t rate gin liqueurs. Which is only true when a liqueur pretends to be a gin for marketing purposes. This bottle makes it very clear it is a liqueur and not a flavoured gin. Moving on. Tipsy Tart make a range of flavoured liqueurs with the aim to stand out from the crowd and to have a bit of fun. Not content with making cocktail ingredients, they also make bursting bubbles and shimmer drops so you can pimp any drink. Their white chocolate vodka has won a number of awards and they have quite the range of gin base liqueurs. I was given a bottle of the Lemon and Elderflower (21%ABV), which are two of my favourite flavours so I have high hopes for this.