Ginmas 2017 and we are already at week 3 !
December is whizzing by and it will soon be the end of the year. How does that happen?
Life has been so frantic this year I have really appreicated my evening sit down with a glass of gin and reading a little more about each distillery, so here is a roundup of the seven from this week.
6 O Clock Gin
6 O Clock Gin is made by Bramley And Gage in Gloucestershire.
They say “The smoothness flows from our custom-built copper still with its unique double sphere head, together with the careful selection of our botanicals and our distiller’s craft. Only the pure heart of each run makes the cut.
Edward Kain, the dapper gentleman seafarer and great grandfather of our Head Distiller, enjoyed his gin and tonic at 6 O’clock; a tradition still shared by British gin-lovers all over the world today”
Interesting to see that they talk about using the heart of the run, many distillers use all of it, the first bit off the still being the head and the last bit being the tail. The heart, obviously, is the middle bit.
Kokoro
Kokoro was the only Japanese gin I tried this Ginmas and it definitely has a very distinctive flavour, making it stand out from a lot of the rest
Made, with the Sansho berry. You may not know it by name, but it is undoubtedly one of the world’s oldest seasonings. Indeed, the people of Japan have been harnessing its magical properties for over 3,000 years.
And magical it is, for Sansho is a natural flavour enhancer that stimulates the taste receptors in your brain, making everything taste better, from the bubbles in your tonic to the garnish in your glass.
The berries grow wild in the Afan Woodland in the Japanese Alps, where C.W.Nicol (aka Old Nic) introduced them to his nephew James in 2014. James immediately recognised the zingy combination of citrus and pepper was the perfect complement for gin, and Kokoro was born.
Today we pick the berries by hand at the start of the season when they are at their freshest, flash freeze them and pack them in dry ice back to the UK.
Blogger Gin
Well excuse me but if you don’t know all there is to know about this one by now WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! Made be me, and Bottomley Distillery, it has cardammon, cinnamon, lemon peel, two types of pepper and licorice in the mix to make what I think is a damn fine gin. You can buy it from The Gin Parlour (obviously) or Amazon
Manchester Gin
I love everything about this gin. From the fact their still is called “Wendy” to the fact the team behind it are a husband and wife who fell in love over gin. Plus it is made in a city that close to my heart as it is where Mr B grew up.
“Staying deeply rooted in the north, we set ourselves apart from the crowd through the use of two botanicals in particular; Dandelion and Burdock Root. Not only did we want to pay tribute to a drink that we both grew up loving, we also wanted to add an earthy centre to our gin. Along with Dandelion and Burdock Root, our award-winning signature gin is made up of ten other specially sourced botanicals including orange and lemon, liquorice and ground almond”
Hortus
This is a cracker of a gin. Especially for the price, and the fact it is made for Lidl. Winning several blind taste test awards, it is one of three in the Hortus range
The gins are all made in Warrington (heart of the country for gin historically) by a chap called Kevin Love who was a protege of Heston Blumenthal’s. I wasn’t sure I would like the Hortus Oriental Spiced London Dry Gin as I am not a huge fan of spiced gins but this one was great.
Malfy
An Italian gin made with lemons, it is perfect with lemonade this one. Unlike most gins, this one is made in a stainless steel still, not copper.
Boxer
This is another award winning gin, and one that many people won’t have heard of. The styling of the blue bottle though really makes this one stand out
Boxer is the world’s first ‘Fresh Botanical Gin’, delivering a classic London Dry style flavour but with a new vibrancy and complexity.
The intense flavour and aroma comes from our signature fresh botanicals -the finest juniper in the world and the planet’s most complex citrus. Black Juniper is a rare varietal of juniper that only grows in the UV rich, pollution free environment of the high Himalayas. These berries are steam distilled to extract even their most nuanced flavours. Boxer’s distinctive citrus notes comes from the fresh cut peel of Bergamot fruit, grown organically in the sun drenched groves of southern Italy, which is cold pressed to extract its essential oils.
Click here for Ginmas week 2