Gin Magazine Dec 2020/Feb 2021

Time is a funny old thing. It’s either going too fast, too slowly, slips by unnoticed, unfilled, too filled. A rare thing – perhaps one of the rarest in this life – is time that is filled with just the right amount of things and that goes at just the right pace. The ‘Goldilocks period of time’, if you will. I don’t know about you, but 2020 seems to have flown by in my little corner of England (which is odd considering that I spent three months sitting at home, decorating, baking and playing The Sims). This could be due in part to the fact that the political, medical and journalistic worlds were moving at a million miles an hour, with news, opinions and advice shifting by faster than you could…

Tarquin’s Cornish Gin is welcoming guests back to its north Cornwall distillery for a visit to its brand new Gin School – with an extra-personal twist. Opened in a listed building on Padstow harbour, the school offers a hands-on distilling experience inspired by founder Tarquin Leadbetter’s own journey – learning how to make gin on a stove top at home. To make their gins truly unique, visitors are encouraged to bring their own botanicals, from homegrown herbs to foraged fruits. They will then be coached through the production process, measuring botanicals, distilling on mini copper pot stills, then labelling, signing and waxing their bottles by hand and adding individual tasting notes. Tarquin Leadbetter, founder and master distiller at Southwestern Distillery, said: “I set up the distillery almost a decade ago now with the…

The Derbyshire Distillery in Chesterfield has launched a new gin in partnership with the Royal British Legion, to raise money for the military charity. Eleventh Hour Gin was the brainchild of Richard Aspinall, an ex-serviceman and sales manager at Derbyshire Distillery, who wanted to do something to support the charity. From each bottle of the gin sold, £3 will go directly to the Legion. The traditional dry gin is distilled with botanicals including sour cherry, ginger, lemon and – fittingly – poppy seeds. Its label has been created in partnership with British fashion designer Nigel Cabourn, famous for his menswear collections inspired by military dress and vintage clothing. Richard, who served in the British Army for five years, has first-hand experience of the Royal British Legion and its valuable services. “I have lost…

Bloom Gin is hoping to be at the heart of the 2021 festival season as the official gin sponsor of American Express presents BST Hyde Park. Cancelled this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, along with so many other summer events and festivals, BST Hyde Park is set for a super return in 2021 with hundreds of thousands of festival goers expected to attend the 10-day event in London. Returning to the festival for a second time, Bloom Gin will be serving up its range of fresh and floral gins to revellers and will bring with it the Bloom Gin Bar, serving up tasty G&Ts and cocktails and sporting a VIP sun terrace. It has also developed a special cocktail to serve at the bar: the Summer in Bloom. To support those…

English gin maker Bullards is bringing a taste of the seaside to its range with its new Coastal Gin. In homage to the spirit maker’s home county, the new gin features a cast of botanicals foraged from the Norfolk coast including sea purslane, marsh samphire and sea aster. These ingredients are combined with orange and lemon peel for a gin that Bullards says “subtly reminds you of the salty freshness of a walk beside the sea”. To make the gin, master distiller Jake Wilson steeps the botanicals for 12 hours with a neutral grain spirit in a 400-litre copper column still. Like Bullards’ other spirits, it’s produced in small batches at the distiller’s home: the grade two-listed Crystal House in central Norwich. The new release comes as Bullards unveils a new packaging innovation…

Want to help fund an arctic maritime navigation while sipping your gin and tonic? Northwest Passage Expedition Gin can help. The craft gin from the Orkney Distillery, producer of the award-winning Kirkjuvagr gin brand, has been created to raise awareness of ocean conservation and help finance a row of the Northwest Passage in 2021. Also known as the Last Great First, this arctic route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans was opened up by intrepid maritime explorers searching for a sailing passage to Asia. Flavoured with botanicals from the shores of Orkney and the Hudson Bay in Canada, the gin pays homage to the chilly climes that inspired it and the explorers who risked their lives on the ocean to carve a new route to the Far East. The botanical bill includes sugar…