Hoist the gin pennant for Cornwall's finest

Walking along the cliff path on St Anthony Head in Cornwall, with views out over the mouth of the Fal, the ancient fortifications of Pendennis and St Mawes Castles, the boats slicing in and out of Carrick Roads, I got to wondering what a self-consciously Cornish gin might taste of—what local botanicals could you use that would evoke the flavour of the place? Seaweed or something briny? Or the blackberry bushes that line all the paths, from which I idly picked as I walked along?

So I was interested to notice, while sitting in a fairly minimalist restaurant in St Mawes, that one of the few spirits on offer was Tarquin’s Cornish Gin. I tracked it down and discovered that it is, indeed, made by a chap called Tarquin Leadbetter at Southwestern Distillery in Wadebridge. They make just two products, the gin and Cornish Pastis (see what they did there?), using a small flame-fired copper pot still. They use fairly traditional botanicals from around the world (though mostly sourced through a bloke called David, apparently)—juniper from Kosovo and coriander from Bulgaria (which they describe as lemon-sherbety rather than hot and spicy like Moroccan coriander), angelica root from Poland, orris root from Morocco, green cardamom seeds from Guatemala, bitter almond from Morocco, cinnamon from Madagascar and liquorice root from Uzbekistan. They also use fresh (rather than dried) citrus peel, orange, lemon and grapefruit, from wherever they are in season in the world. And the final, magic ingredient—and the one that makes it distinctly Cornish—is Cornish violets, grown in Tarquin’s garden. It is diluted down to 42% ABV using springwater from near Boscastle (which is also bottled and sold as mineral water, called MeadowSweet). Each bottle of the small, 300-bottle batches is signed and numbered by hand by Tarquin himself, and dipped in striking blue wax for good measure.

I notice that, in addition to Tarquin’s signature and the bottle number, the label also includes a box labelled “Character”, again filled in by hand on each bottle. You might think the character of the gin would be fixed by the recipe, but Tarquin deliberately includes these tasting notes to emphasise the variations you get with gin made in this way. “We're celebrating the nuances between batches, highlighting the fact that our spirits are not mass-produced,” he tells me. “We could have blended batches, or implemented a sherry-style solera bottling system. But I think it's quite fun to do our crafty sort of way.” My sample was “Earthy orange”, while another bottle I had a taste from was “Eastern spices” and one in a photo on the website is “Fresh orange blossom”.

“In the months up to Christmas we're doing something special with some filming, to make these tasting notes more interactive,” Tarquin adds. “…So stay tuned!”

Tarquin's hand-written tasting note on my bottle from batch 91

If I expected the gin to smell of violets I was in for a surprise. Chilled you mostly get fresh, stern juniper and lemony coriander to the fore. On the palate you also notice a softness, perhaps from the water, or the liquorice or the orange peel. At room temperature the orange notes are more prominent on the nose too, along with an interesting herbaceous quality that emerges as quite a characteristic. Interestingly Tarquin says, “One unusual ingredient is the Devon violet. From these I take the delicate leaves, which add a vibrant green freshness to the gin and create something deliciously unique.” So it is not the violet flowers involved but the leaves, and this is presumably the stemmy, herbal element that I am getting.

I instantly warm to this gin, not least because it is a gin that knows it’s a gin. So many modern gins shy away from juniper in favour of sweet or floral elements which are, let’s face it, aimed at attracting people who don’t really like gin. But Tarquin puts juniper up front. As such the gin works well in a G&T and especially in a Negroni, where the juniper pokes through but the mid-range elements and the underlying softness round the drink out too. Then you have that interesting herbal layer combined with the orange aroma, and at the bottom a relatively soft, sweet finish so as not to scare the horses. This also makes it good for a Martini as it is relatively approachable neat.

To get a clearer picture I put the gin head-to-head with some others. Bombay Dry emerges as drier, with a lemon-sherbet sharpness, with Tarquin’s gin softer and sweeter. SW4 has a similar fullness, but Tarquin’s gin comes across as more savoury, leafy and herbal, while SW4 is plumper, sweeter and more about spice. Tanqueray is quite similar on the nose but Tarquin’s is fatter and more complex, with more herbal punch and again a softer, sweeter finish. Beefeater 24 does have a tea element which stands out and it is lighter and drier. Finally, G’vine Nouaison matches up in the aromatic stakes, smelling quite minty and suggesting sweet roots. In fact it seems positively cloying, again emphasising the savoury herbal cut of Tarquin’s jib.

Overall I think Tarquin’s Cornish Gin is a remarkable achievement, managing somehow to combine the steely, upright juniper cutting edge of classic London Dry Gin, with a sophisticated modern soft finish, and a distinctive mid-range of orange zest and sappy herbaceous punch, like fresh leaves crunching under foot. It is complex and versatile, but not so outré as to fall down in classic gin cocktails.

Does it remind me of Cornwall? The bottle has images of fishing boats, basking sharks and what looks like the lighthouse not fifty yards from where I was staying, but there is nothing of the sea about the liquid (though I suppose a dash of Islay whisky might remedy that). But Cornwall does have a warm, humid microclimate, so perhaps the waft of verdant undergrowth in this gin is apt.

Tarquin’s Cornish Gin can be had online from Master of Malt for £35.57 or if you’re in Falmouth you can pop into the Bottle Bank and get it for about £29. For more stockists see www.southwesterndistillery.com.

Quintinye Vermouth Royal

Vermouth, the aromatized wine that mostly hails from France or Italy, is one of the founding cocktail ingredients, along with spirits and bitters (and like bitters vermouths were often medicinal in their original conception). Yet, while every week brings another new gin, it is not often that someone launches a new vermouth. So I was interested to be invited along to the launch of the Quintinye Vermouth Royal range.

The three products, a Blanc, a Rouge and an Extra Dry, hail from Eurowinegate, the folks behind G’Vine gin, and the launch showed a familiar head-on aplomb. The venue was the Café Royal (geddit?), in the extraordinary grotto of mirrors and gold ormolu that is the Grill Room. Various staff, including Gaz Regan, were drifting around dressed like courtiers from 17th-century Versailles. (The DJ was so attired as well, though, disappointingly her music occupied fairly safe house territory with not a tinkling harpsichord to be heard.)

At the launch we are transported to the Palace of Versailles

So what is “royal” about this vermouth? And what’s with the name? DBS was there and grumbled about the moniker, which he thought was obscure and complicated. He may have a point: if someone can’t pronounce the name of a product are they less likely to buy it? As it turns out, the range is named after Jean-Baptiste de la Quintinye, botanist to King Louis XIV of France. Quintinye was commissioned by the Sun King to create the kitchen gardens at the Palace of Versailles, and each bottle of the vermouth features a drawing of him. The manufacturers like to think they are carrying on in the tradition of this herbalist visionary.

Even Gaz Regan is in costume

These vermouths are created in the Charentes region, home of Pineau des Charentes, a sweet “wine” that is created by blending grape juice with Cognac, a process that preserves some of the delicate characteristic of the grape which might normally be lost in the fermentation and distillation process. Pineau de Charentes is used in the blends of wines that go into these vermouths and this seems appropriate, given that G’Vine gin, as well as being based on grape spirit, includes vine flower in its botanicals (as do all the Quintinye vermouths). Clearly EWG are all about preserving the essence of the fruit that lies at the heart of all their products, the grape.

In addition to this unusual wine base (plus some Cognac for fortification) the vermouths contain a wide array of infused botanicals—18 in the Blanc, 27 in the Extra Dry and 28 in the Rouge. Chief among these is wormwood; this may be something you had associated with absinthe, but in fact vermouth (the name of which derives from vermut, the German for wormwood) must contain it under EU regulations. (EWG’s Jean-Sébastien Robicquet points out that in the US anything with wormwood in it must be submitted for testing by the FDA—presumably still wary of it because of its association with the long-illegal absinthe—and since many producers can’t afford the $10,000 fee, they prefer to leave that ingredient out. Mind you, I doubt that many consumers will be intrinsically outraged to discover their vermouth contains no vermut, even if they might prefer the taste of vermouth with it in.)

Some of the cocktails on offer

Other ingredients include vine flower, angelica, orris, cardamom, cinnamon, bitter orange, nutmeg, ginger, cinchona bark (source of quinine and a key element in quinated vermouths like China Martini and the long-lost Kina Lillet), liquorice and the bitter Quassia Amara.

We start our tasting with the Blanc. The nose is rich, sweet, with hints of orange, cucumber and grapefruit. It reaches out to your with a gentle but enticing floral aroma, with elderflower, a whiff of coal tar and a faint earthy bitterness. In that latter respect it actually reminds me of Campari a little. On the palate there is an unexpected dimension: it’s a sort of slightly sour, slightly over-ripe floral note that I get from some white absinthes, and I suspect it comes from the wormwood. It vaguely reminds me of Plasticene and I’m not keen on it. But overall it is a subtle drink, with a honeyed underlying sweetness, not cloying at all. I can see this appealing as an aperitif chilled on its own or over ice.

Next up is the Extra Dry, staple of the classic Dry Martini. There is a strong family resemblance to the Blanc, but it is more intense—that twisted floral element that I’m not keen on is much more prominent and there is not the inviting, fruity sweetness of the blanc. It is sharper and drier with a tarragon/anise pungency, and notes of bergamot and pencil lead.

DBS doesn't know which cocktail to try first

Although these are clearly sophisticated, subtle blends, I have to confess that I’m not that keen on them neat, because of the dominance of that (I assume) wormwood element. But how many of us drink vermouth neat? And I quickly discover that in a cocktail context these are different beasts. Mix either of these with gin to make a sweet or dry Martini and that disconcerting element vanishes (in all but the wettest mix). Using Tanqueray as a fairly classic sort of gin, a half-and-half band with the Quintinye blanc produces a highly approachable drink with juniper to the fore but the mellow fruity sweetness of the Pineau curling seductively around the edges, warming orange, and finally some spicy/bitter sparks firing off at the end.

Even at 50:50 (far wetter than most people would make it) a Dry Martini with the Extra Dry is not as disconcerting to me as the stuff is neat. And at 4:1 (how I normally make a Dry Martini) the balance is perfect: the gin’s juniper and coriander forces are marshalled at the front, but the softening floral, honey and herbal notes are right behind, and in the mouth the fresh bitter-sweet contributions of the wine are just right. It’s the sort of thing that reminds you what the point of a Dry Martini actually is. I’m still not that keen on the pronounced wormwood flavour (if such it be) but this is nevertheless a sophisticated vermouth that has been thought through from the ground up.

At the launch the final product we tasted was the rouge. The wine blend includes red Pineau des Charentes, which is noteworthy—most red vermouths are actually based on white wine. Tasted neat, for me this was the star: a rich and fascinating nose of red berries, raspberries, orange, cinnamon, marshmallow, celery, raisins, careering between sweet and aromatic and drily bitter. This continues on to the palate with pronounced coffee notes and some chocolate, roses, parma violets, gentian, cedar wood… As you can see it evolves constantly.

Sadly the DJ's gear and music could not keep
up the retro credentials of her outfit

One of the classic red vermouth drinks is the Negroni (equal parts red vermouth, gin and Campari) and EWG are clearly using this as their signature serve: most of the drinks served on the night seem to be variations on this and we are all given a special edition of Gaz Regan’s book dedicated to this cocktail. At the time it strikes me that the Quintinye has many of the elements of the Negroni already going on, so later at home I see what happens if we add one part gin to two parts Quintinye rouge. Straightaway the high juniper waft marries well with the warmth of the vermouth, before the latter begins to assert itself again in a jammy, chocolately way, with still those spikes of bitter root-notes. Dial in some more gin (taking it in a Martinez direction) and it still works, with a woody, cinnamon flavour seeming to emerge between the two ingredients. Unsurprisingly it starts to remind me of the sweet and dry Martinis. Although pretty much all of the Quintinye botanicals are found in gin (though not necessarily in Tanqueray, which famously has only four, juniper, coriander, angelica and liquorice), perhaps it is the fact that the botanicals are infused rather than distilled that allows the vermouths to bring a fresh, bitter-sweet, fruitiness to compliment the gin and make for a more complete drink.

And of the Negroni? The launch event peppered us with different recipe variations, but sticking with the classic blend of equal parts gin, red vermouth and Campari, I compare a Tanqueray-based version using Quintinye red with one using Martini Rosso. Aside from a darker, redder colour,* the Quintinye is softer, smoother, sweeter, with a more evolving subtle complexity, while the Martini is high, dry and herbal. Some may prefer the sharper combo with the Martini (and, much as I love Antica Formula in a Manhattan, for example, I have always believed that it makes a less satisfactory Negroni than Martini Rosso); but the Quintinye certainly makes its fresh, vivid character felt.

I thought it slightly odd that they should have these sheaves
of pungent herbs on the tables at the tasting…

The other classic red vermouth drink must surely be that Manhattan, so I give that a try. Even with a cheap bourbon, the Quintinye rouge has quite a transformative power—the pronounced wood and sweet characteristics of the whiskey blend easily enough with the wood-spice and Pineau elements of the vermouth, but the latter brings much more besides. Even outnumbered by the bourbon two to one, it softens the rough edges and unfurls bitter, sweet, floral and aromatic tendrils in all directions. Compared side by side with Noilly Rouge, the Quintinye strikes me as actually less sweet and more subtle, a characteristic I would extend to the whole range: once I started mixing with them I found you could blend in quite a high proportion without the vermouth taking over.

A GQ&T**

As you can probably tell, I am favourably impressed by the Quintinye range. Even though I am iffy about the wormwood character in the Blanc and Extra Dry, there is a fresh, subtle, three-dimensionality to all the products that makes you rethink the whole point of vermouth. I haven’t felt this taken by an aromatised wine since I discovered Cocchi’s irresistible Barolo Chinato.

One other thing I like about this range is the acknowledgement that most of us drink vermouth in small quantities: although full bottles exist, we were sent home with 37.5-centilitre half bottles, and very dark bottles they were, with solid rubber/plastic bungs—all of this intended to preserve the freshness of the precious liquid. If you have read my woes about trying to avert the spoilage of vermouth, you will understand that I view this attitude as all too welcome.

Moreover, my new favourite aperitif is now a half-and-half mix of gin and Quintinye Blanc, topped up with tonic water and garnished with a lime slice—I call it a GQ&T, essentially a G&T with the added fresh herbal/floral infused flavours. By mid-summer all the kids will be drinking it, you mark my words.

* In fairness the Martini has been open a while, so oxidation may have turned it browner than God intended.
** As in Gin, Quintinye & Tonic, I'm surprised there aren't more cocktails involving tonic water (expect a post from me soon with some of my favourite G&T variants), although I recently realised that this "creation" of mine is not a million miles away from the clericot prepared for me by Argentine cocktail god Tato

A thoroughly Scottish gin

The mysterious box opens to reveal…

I was lucky enough to receive a mysterious package in the post the other day, which turned out to be from the folk at Caorunn, a relatively new gin from Scotland. Quite a bit of effort had gone into the package itself, so I have documented what I believe is known as the “unpack” in tech geek circles in photographs on the right.

I was initially a bit perplexed as to what the thing was handles was, but Mrs H guessed that it was for coring and slicing apples in a single stroke. It seems that just as, in a crowded marketplace, new gins frequently have oddball botanicals, so it also seems de rigeur to specify an unusual garnish, and in this case it is indeed slices of apple—coul blush apple being one of the botanicals.*

The other thing you notice straightaway is the unusual five-sided glass included in the package (not the easiest to drink out of but stylish nonetheless). In fact the bottle itself is subtly pentagonal, and the theme carries on in the five-pointed asterisk that graces the label.

A sticker with a five-pointed star, hiding…

Now at this point a weaker man than I would start to fear that this logo, which is to all intents and purposes a pentagram, heralded witchcraft or paganism—perhaps an overture to lure me on a “fact-finding mission” to the Balmenach Distillery in Cromdale on the Spey where it is made, only to find myself burned in a wicker man by villagers wearing animal masks.

Fortunately there is a more prosaic explanation. In addition to six conventional gin botanicals (juniper, coriander, lemon peel, orange peel, angelica root and cassia bark) Caorunn (pronounced ka-ROON) also features five Scottish botanicals as well, rowan berry, heather, dandelion, bog myrtle and the aforementioned apple). In fact caorunn is the Gaellic name for rowan.** In this respect it is like The Botanist gin, which uses only botanicals found on the island of Islay where it is made (which is not to say, I assume, that the actual botanicals used in the gin are all sourced on Islay). That gin manages to rack up a tally of 31 botanicals (which I had thought was a record, though I gather that Monkey 47 actually has 47), making Caorunn seem a model of Zen-like simplicity with only 11. Although Caorunn technically falls into the category of “London Gin” (the highest EU grade, indicating a high quality spirit, natural botanicals with no artificial flavourings, and no colours or flavours added after distillation), the labelling prefers to refer to it simply as “Scottish gin”.

A collection of intriguing objects

Like The Botanist, Caorunn is made by a whisky distillery, in this case the Balmenach Distillery, owned by the Inver House Group, which also includes Pulteney, Balblair, Knockdu and Speyburn-Glenlivet in its portfolio, and apparently a vodka made at its Airdrie facility too. Balmenach was one of the first distilleries to be sanctioned under the Excise Act of 1823.

The gin was allegedly inspired by the landscape of the Cairngorms in which the distillery is located. It is batch-distilled by hand using an unusual still a bit like a Carterhead, in that the botanicals infuse into the alcohol vapour rather than coming into contact with the liquid spirit. But where the Carterhead has a botanical basket at the top of a column, the Balmenach still has a unique copper “berry chamber” in which the botanicals are spread out on four horizontal trays, to maximise their exposure to the vapour. The spirit is triple distilled from 100% grain and the gin is diluted to 41.8% ABV using spring water that filters down through the Cromdale Hills behind the distillery.

The "berry chamber" with trays for the botanicals

Uncork a bottle of Caorunn and you are met by a soft aroma, a blend of inviting spice with an almost chocolatey warmth, and, higher up, a crisp, aromatic stemminess. I open up some Tanqueray for comparative purposes and it has a stiffer juniper/coriander nose. In a glass, Caorunn definitely has a softer juniper element than traditional gin, with subtle herbal notes and a pronounced fruitiness, which I guess must come from the rowan berries. Where Tanquerary packs a prickly high-note punch, Caorunn is softer and sweeter, almost creamy with berry fruit, aromatic apple notes, and a slightly toasty, biscuity finish.

Those mystical objects in detail. Both the bottle label and the etchings of the highball glass
show sort of Rennie Mackintosh stylised images of the five Scottish botanicals in the gin

I knock up a couple of G&Ts, one with Caorunn and one using Chancery, a fairly traditional own-brand gin from Tesco that is made by Greenalls. Where the Chancery emphasises dry spice the Caorunn at first offers a more pronounced orange element plus delicate, fragrant high notes that do seem something like apple. In any case the apple garnish does go very well.

Even the bottle (viewed here from the underside) is pentagonal

In some ways Caorunn is following the trend of producing gins that have a softer, sweeter character than traditional steely juniper-driven gin, presumably to attract people who do not consider themselves gin drinkers—perhaps because they are not that keen on juniper. Where some, like Bloom or G’Vine (and to a certain extent Adnams) add heavy floral flavours, Caorunn is a subtler, more elusive beast. To get the most out of its understated flavour it might be best consumed just with tonic or neat on the rocks, or in a pretty dry Martini (I try one at my usual 4:1 ratio and the gin is almost being masked by the vermouth).

Yes, the apple corer/slicer does actually work

In a standard Negroni (equal parts gin, red vermouth and Campari) the gin again seems swamped. But on the Caorunn website there is a large number of rather interesting-sounding recommended cocktails, one of which is a Negroni—but made with Aperol instead of Campari. So I make one like this and it does indeed work much better, the gentler flavour of the Aperol allowing the gin to make its presence felt in the form of gentle juniper and some floral notes.

I try another one from the site, called King James II and created by Mal Spence of Blythswood Square Hotel. It involves an interesting blend of the gin, Lillet Blanc, Pernod, elderflower liqueur, grapefruit bitters and gomme syrup. An inspired and imaginative combination in my opinion, with the anise and elderflower fencing in the foreground and the gin’s apple aromatics seemingly floating over the top. This is an interesting example of a Lillet Blanc cocktail where this ingredient really works—most are just using Lillet Blanc because Kina Lillet isn’t made any more, and it never seems to work, presumably because Kina Lillet packed more of a bitter herbal punch than the soft, sweet, orangey modern drink.

A King James II cocktail

Hats off to Caorunn for producing such a thoughtful cocktail list—many spirit brands will post just a perfunctory five or six “cocktails” that turn out to be simply the addition of a mixer. And the couple that I have tried so far do indeed seem to showcase the gin’s gentle subtleties, where many classic gin cocktail recipes might swamp it. 

Experimenting with flavour blends not led by juniper seems to be frightfully modish at the moment (as we discovered on Monday at the Craft Distillers Association gin awards organised by DBS, more of which anon). So even if you are not a Scottish nationalist you might want to give Caorunn a try. At about £25 a bottle it’s not unreasonably priced.

* At the Beefeater 24 global cocktail competition last December I got talking to one of the organisers and I commented that I thought it was a bit odd that these recommended garnishes are invariably one of the botanicals that go into the gin. He looked a bit shocked and said, “When we train bartenders we tell them always to garnish using only botanicals that are in the gin.” But while this will always keep you on fairly safe ground, there is an argument for saying that if the gin does indeed taste better with a bit more of that particular botanical, why not just add more when making the gin? Of course there may well be a difference between the flavour of a fresh ingredient and the flavour it might lend by being macerated in the spirit and then redistilled. But in any case I would have thought that garnishing could be as much an opportunity to investigate flavour combinations (by adding things that are not in the botanical list) as a way of emphasising a flavour that is already in the gin.

** Apparently rowan berries were used in Celtic medicines—as indeed juniper was also considered to have medicinal benefits, and was first used in spirits as a way of preserving those healing powers rather than as a way to flavour the hooch.

When is a gin not a gin?

Brockmans gin, with a cocktail containing it, crafted by John Clay

Gin is everywhere. The rate at which new gins are launched these days is extraordinary—particularly when so many of them claim their mission is to get away the traditions of this fusty, musty, old-man beverage.*

Mr Bridgman-Smith tells me that when Brockmans gin was first launched, about three years ago, he went to a tasting and their attitude was, "Hey, we're a gin. A little bit different, but essentially a gin." Last Monday, however, at a tasting at the Juniper Society in London, brand ambassador John Clay's attitude was far more defensive, more along the lines of, "Hey, what is a gin, anyway? All that matters is whether it's a nice drink or not."

The labelling on the bottle, and indeed the Brockmans website, emphasise only that Brockmans is a very smooth gin, which you can easily enjoy over ice. All night. Surrounded by predatory lesbians and men in boar-head masks. (That's the website, by the way. They don't actually say this on the label. Now that would be bold.) All of which comfortably ignores the elephant in the room, which is that Brockmans smells and tastes very strongly of Ribena. Among the usual gin botanicals, including juniper, citrus peel and coriander seed, are dried blackberries and blueberries**, macerated at the same time as the others prior to redistillation. And their influence is huge: we are not talking a subtle ghost of an echo of "Oh, and is there a hint of blackberries and blueberries on the finish?". No, it really is quite overpowering. Underneath this berry fruit are the other botanicals too, but you have to focus hard to perceive them.

John tries to free our minds in his presentation by offering platters of tastebud teasers—a blackberry jelly with a blueberry secreted at its core, a dollop of lemon sorbet, a spoonful of what appears to be Spacedust and a shot of liquor with some sort of red berry frogspawn at the bottom—yes, he's getting seriously molecular on our asses. These are all flavours we should be detecting in the gin, I think. Then he shows us some gustatory parlour tricks to prove the crucial role played by aroma on taste and the importance of saliva in your mouth to taste something properly. (Informative, though I'm unlikely to go out to dinner and leave my saliva at home.) Finally, as we are invited to taste the product itself, he has us burst overhead balloons, showering us with atomised gin. This is all very jolly, and I learned a few things about the mechanism of taste, but you can't help suspecting he is trying to distract us from something.

Brockmans is not alone in adding rare-groove objects into the mix. Hendricks famously includes rose and cucumber, Aviation uses lavender, Old Raj is slightly yellow because of the saffron in it, and Tanqueray Rangpur tastes like a lime Opal Fruit. Interestingly all this comes when, only 18 months ago, the EU decided to lay down the law about what gin could actually be, and "London gin" in particular—the rules governing the latter are far stricter than "gin" in general and "distilled gin" as a rank in between the two. Yet the rules allow any kind of flavouring as long as it is "natural" and "approved". So while The London Gin No.1, despite its name (and the fact that it is made in London), cannot call itself a "London gin" because it is coloured blue by maceration with gardenia flowers—colouring is out, apparently—Brockmans on the other hand can give itself that honour despite being essentially a jam. (The rules do insist that not only must there be juniper in the mix but that the predominant flavour must be juniper. Somehow Brockmans have managed to persuade the elders of the Gin Council that this is the case.)

Ever the imp, DBS brought me a bottle of weird
absinthe, which doesn't taste of much but does
turn violet when diluted. He challenged John Clay
to make a cocktail containing this and Brockmans
and this is the result, a cross between a Clover
Club and a Pegu Club.

Mark has a point, of course. All this categorisation and definition is surely neither here not there: the ultimate question is whether you've made a yummy drink. And I do think that Brockmans is well made. Within the innovation-seeking world of mixology there is surely room for all flavours; John and the staff at Graphic did a good job of trying out different cocktails with the stuff in, and the Clover Club (gin, vermouth, lemon juice, egg white and raspberry syrup), for example, made perfect sense.

But while injecting playful hints of outré ingredients is all very well, you can't help wondering why Brockmans has to taste so strongly of berries. I think the answer lies in that "perfectly smooth" tagline. The creators wanted something that people (and by this I mean women—look at the Brockmans site and you'll see all the videos and still photos bar one feature only women drinking it) would drink plain over ice late into the evening. Like Baileys. And clearly they decided that a massive sweetish berry hit was the only way to make it approachable enough compared to the dry, spiky qualities of traditional gin that make it so appealing as a perky, eye-opening aperitif. Perhaps they hope that one day their gin will become generic—like Baileys—and women will slide up to the bar and purr, "Brockmans on the rocks, please."

But if someone goes into a bar and asks for a gin and tonic and is given something with Brockmans in it, there would be an unseemly riot. Which makes you wonder: instead of getting so defensive when traditionalists huff that Brockmans isn't really gin—and creating a philosophical smokescreen of "What is gin, anyway? And if a G&T spills in a forest and no one hears it, does it really make a sound? etc."—why call it a gin at all? If the market, style and serving suggestions are so different, why fight so hard to be accepted on to the juniper Mount Olympus? John Clay explains that it is to do with categories: gin is a recognised one that people know what to do with and how to sell, and, ironically, its history and traditions give it clout and recognition among consumers. Without that, Brockmans would be out there trying to create a whole new category on its own.

I guess if you want to be different, you need to have something to be different from.

Brockmans retails for about £27 for a 70cl bottle. See the Brockmans site for a list of stockists (though it looks as if you'll have to wear a mask and do some juggling before they'll let you have any).

* If it's so tragically five-minutes-ago, why not leave it alone and launch an alcopop instead?
**Yes, I know that Ribena is blackcurrant rather than blackberry, but I'm afraid Ribena is what it reminds me of.

An Orange Fist…in an Orange Glove

Philip Wilson with a Fifty Pound "case gin" bottle

When someone is talking about a drink they make or sell it can sometimes be heavily technical, sometimes heavily business-oriented. But Philip Wilson prefers to operate on a much more personal level. "If we like the guy who makes it, we're happy to bring it in," he says with an affable shrug. "Does he care? Has the basic product been well made or are there flaws and imbalances in there? Right now we're dealing with this Australian whisky maker—we'll sell the square root of not a lot, but we like what he does." OK, this makes Philip sound like a cross between a hippy and a Mafia godfather, and he is neither. But he and his four colleagues at Eaux de Vie Ltd specialise in very niche products so are used to dealing in passion rather than high volumes.

We're at London's Graphic Bar to taste Philip's Fifty Pound gin. Mercifully the name is not an indication of price but a reference to the tax brought in by George II in an attempt to quash dangerous low-end gins that were flooding the place and damaging the nation's health. (Not dissimilar to the situation in France in the late 19th century when the soaring popularity of absinthe led to a flood of dangerously low-grade drinks.) Which is a bit odd considering that Fifty Pound was actually put together for the Spanish market. Yes, there is a huge market for gin in Spain, and a big sherry distributor decided to add one to their list. So they had something knocked up by Thames Distillers in south London (New Sheridan Club Members may be interested to note that this is the same company who manufacture SW4 gin, sponsors of the NSC summer party). Philip was looking through their sherry list and came across the gin. His curiosity piqued he had a bottle sent over and decided to distribute it in the UK.

Fifty Pound is a muscle gin.* It's intended to imitate the old-style London Dry Gin—"big, fat and flavoursome", as Philip puts it. The 11 botanicals (juniper, angelica root, coriander, liquorice root, grains of paradise, lemon and orange rind and savoury, plus another three secret ones) are cold-macerated in quadruple-distilled grain spirit then redistilled just once. (Other gins may use multiple distillations post-maceration to create a "purer" effect, but a single distillation hangs on to more of the essential oils—and this is a gin that packs a punch.) The distillation takes place in batches in a small John Dore still. Crucially, the gin is then allowed to "rest" for three weeks—to allow all those oils to integrate fully with the spirit—before bottling in distinctive rectangular bottles that taper from the shoulder to the base. (The design is modelled pretty closely on the earliest gin bottles, known as "case gin" because the shape made the bottles easier to pack together in cases.) The label of each bottle is marked with the number of the 1,000-bottle batch from which it comes.

Fifty Pound with the Tanq and the Fever Tree we used for the G&T test

Sampled neat, at room temperature, Fifty Pound has plenty of the juniper coming through with a steely graphite top note, and also red berries. But for me the defining characteristic is the orange rind, giving it a warm, spicy quality. It's like a Christmas gin. The official brand characteristics are smoothness and balance, though it didn't strike me as especially smooth on the palate—but then most of the action was on the nose, which is boisterous, like being hit over the head with an orange in a sock.

Philip had also brought some Tanqueray to taste alongside, and the comparison was intriguing. After the Fifty Pound the Tanq nose struck me as delicately perfumed in a floral way, refined and subtle; the palate was woody, aromatic and more lingering than the Fifty Pound. Much as I warmed to the latter I also found myself developing new respect for the Tanqueray.

Philip had one more trick up his sleeve: Death's Door gin, from Wisconsin. Anyone who finds that all gin just tastes of gin should stick their snout into this. It's dominated by fennel, so much so that to me it doesn't smell or taste like gin at all. Not just fennel but a sort of pungent stewed fennel, with hints of other stewed veg and burnt rubber, like a bad ratatouille. Mr Bridgman-Smith couldn't see what I was complaining about and confessed he rather liked it, but for me the one thing it was good for was giving you a renewed appreciation of the other two gins. Just smelling them again after the Death's Door was like collapsing into the arms of the love of one's life (sadly quite close to the truth…). The comparison really brought out a rose-petal bouquet to the Tanq and a aromatic wood note to the Fifty Pound.

Fifty Pound gin is around £30.50 a bottle.

* I keep wanting to pronounce it "fiddy-poun", like it's the obvious thing for 50 Cent to drink with his homies. I think the days of cognac—sorry, "nyak"—as the de rigeur hip-hop drink are surely over.