Gŵyr Pinwydd gin

Note: Siân kindly sent me a bottle of their new gin to try, but as always I will let you know what I really think.

You might have seen my post about Gŵyr‘s first gin (if not, you can catch up here) and today we try their new seasonal offering. What does Pinwydd mean I hear you ask? Well, luckily my Welsh is brilliant (and Siân translated it for me) and I can tell you it means “pine trees”. If you’re as smart as I hope you are, you might have guessed that this gin features pine tips as the new flavour. The pine tips are foraged from North Gower – a very different region to South Gower where the team live and distill. They gathered their ingredients and made up their first batch, which they quickly discovered was “too piney” and after some experimenting they found that pink peppercorns were the answer to balancing the flavours. This gin is the first in what they hope will be a seasonal range showcasing what the region has to offer , and this is the ‘winter’ edition. Other seasonal botanicals include orange pulp, zest and cranberry, on top of their original recipe of juniper, angelica, coriander, orris and lemon zest. So, how piney does this gin really taste?

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Ginvent 2017 – Rock Rose Winter Gin

Today is day 19 of Ginvent and today we’re trying Rock Rose Gin‘s Winter Edition. I have tried Rock Rose once, a long time ago at Dolly’s Gin Parlour in Falmouth (which, FYI, you should visit should you be in the depths of Cornwall) and I was a fan. Rock Rose hails from Dunnet Bay Distillers – not too far from John O’Groats – after 55 experiments to find the final recipe back in August 2014. Their original edition includes Rhodiol Rosea – a type of rose root local to Caithness – along with sea buckthorn and rowen berries. They have their original gin and a Navy Strength gin that are always on sale as well as limited run seasonal editions. This year’s Winter Edition is a scaled back version of their original gin, but this allows the added spruce tips (collected by Rock Rose gardener Hanna) to bring forth an earthy and citrusy note to the gin. So, let’s see how it tastes. Continue reading