Cornish gin update

I was back in Cornwall on holiday last month and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the range of locally produced gins had expanded.

In a seafront bar in St Ives I tasted a sample of the murky St Ives gin, cold compounded using locally-foraged botanicals, such as seaweed, gorse and basil. The literature states, “a special blend of 13 botanicals gathered from the Cornish coastline, cottage garden and cliff tops come together to create this distinctively different gin experience,” but I’m assuming not all the botanicals are local, and indeed the website actually states that local ingredients are used “where possible”. I confess I was not immediately taken—it seemed a bit cloying and not very ginlike—but I will withhold judgement until I’ve given it a proper tasting.

In John’s – The Liquor Cellar, again in St Ives, I asked for a recommendation and came away with an elegantly square bottle of Foy gin. It’s made in Fowey, which is indeed pronounced “Foy”, and the producers must have decided it was simpler to spell it that way than be forever correcting people who asked for “Foh-ee” or “Fow-ee”. The label gives little away, other than that is has six botanicals and, intriguingly, is made from their own alcohol. “They” turns out to be Fowey Valley Cider, and producer Barrie Gobson confirms that the base spirit is made from apples. They also make a vodka, an eau de vie distilled from their vintage cider, and a liqueur blending the eau de vie with apple juice.

Barrie’s description of the development process is interesting: “I had a few groups of tasters in the area—all gin fans. My first few creations got the ‘OK, but not great’. I personally think a lot of the new gins have rather overpowering botanicals with a lot of ‘aniseedey’ and ‘liquoricey’ flavours. Eventually I gave up on the unique ingredient idea and went back to some very old recipes for inspiration. This was the breakthrough and eventually our ‘back to basics’ classic dry Foy Gin was born.”

Neat, the gin leads with juniper and prominent juicy orange peel. There is also a definite stemmy, herbal element and warm sweetness that reminds me of gingernut biscuits but may just be suggested by the orange. The sweetness extends to a floral note. On the tongue it is dry; I’d like to say I can detect apples, but I can’t. There is a delicate whirl of warm spices and a lean, slightly bitter, finish. In a G&T it has quite a distinct character, with a whiff of what reminds me of fresh cucumber and dry woody spice like coriander or cumin on the palate.

The whole “artisan gin” game seems to accept, as one of its rules, that these gins are pricey, typically around £35 a bottle. But Foy gin is £32 for just 50cl—the equivalent of £48 for a regular bottle—so you would have to be jolly keen on it to make it your everyday snifter. Some of that price is going to come from the expensive-looking bottle. It has occurred to me that self-consciously “local” gins could have a scheme where you can take your empty bottles back to the distillery shop and get them refilled at a discount, but I guess this might defeat the object—having an expensive-looking bottle is your justification for charging a premium price. (Making your own base spirit certain pushes up costs, but the gin itself is never going to be the expensive bit: even an off-the-shelf bottle will probably cost the producer more than its contents.)*

The other two gins I came away with were both from brands I’d already tried and liked, Trevethan and Tarquin’s Cornish Gin, but in each case I discovered they had produced a Navy strength edition and decided to give them a try.

Generally speaking (and I believe it is the case for these two) a Navy stength gin is the same recipe as a distillery’s regular offering, but bottled at around 57% ABV. Apparently back in the 18th century, when globe-trotting Royal Navy officers were stocking their ships with gin (there was a Naval ordinance declaring how much gin was required to be carried on board), there developed a suspicion that suppliers were watering the stuff down. Being in the Navy they had plenty of gunpowder knocking around and they discovered that if gin were spilled on to gunpowder, the gunpowder could still be lit if the gin was at least 57% alcohol. So that become “Navy strength”, since it was easy to test if any given sample complied.

So what, in this day and age, is the point of Navy strength gin? I have often wondered this myself. In a G&T you could simply adjust the amount of tonic and it would come to the same thing. Drink it neat? Really, at 57%? I suppose that if you feel that stirring or shaking with ice dilutes your Martini too much, then you might feel that Navy strength can counter this—so that after dilution from shaking, the gin comes back down to the ABV you wanted in the first place.

Neat, Trevethan Chauffeur’s Reserve is pretty intense. I’m definitely hit by that coriander-driven character, but I’m sure I remember a more complex interplay of flavours from the regular-strength version. I make a Martini and it still feels a bit closed. I experiment with re-shaking it repeatedly, therefore introducing more water from the ice each time, and I’m struck by the velvety smoothness of the mouthfeel, almost chocolatey.

So I try some basic gin cocktails, staring with an Aviation (roughly two shots gin, half each of lemon juice and maraschino and about a teaspoon of crème de violette). The Foy makes a nice drink, still with that vegetal/cucumber thing going on. Then I try one with Trevethan and suddenly I change my tune—the character of the gin shines through, the coriander dry-spice vibe sitting very comfortably with the wood-tannin element of the Luxardo maraschino. It’s a thought-provoking experience—the two versions are the same cocktail but quite different drinks.

So perhaps this is the point of Navy strength gin. There are definitely cocktails out there where more delicate gins are just swamped by the other ingredients. I try a Corpse Reviver No.2, which definitely falls into this category of cocktail. (Classically it’s one shot each of gin, curaçao, lemon juice and Kina Lillet plus a dash of absinthe—Kina Lillet hasn’t been made since the 1980s, but Cocchi Americano works well, and China Marini works well too, though its dark colour messes with the visuals.) Again the Trevethan is a triumph, easily standing up to—and harmonising elegantly with—the other components.

The simple but powerful Negroni (equal parts gin, Campari and red vermouth) can challenge more subtle gins, but here again the Trevethan makes its presence easily felt.

Tarquin’s Seadog gin is his Navy strength offering. As soon as you stick your nose to the bottle there is an extraordinary parma-violet floral concentration. This gin does use violets, picked from Tarquin’s garden, although it’s interesting that I wasn’t struck by a floral character from the regular gin. I think the chap who sold me the Seadog might had intimated that they adjusted the balance of the botanicals for this expression, but it’s worth noting that the botanical bill includes orris and angelica too, which might actually be where the floral thrust is coming from. Neat I also get a black pepper element. Stirred with ice I notice that the gin louches a bit, testament to the high concentration of essential oils dissolved in all that alcohol.

A Negroni made with Tarquin's Seadog gin

I try a Seadog Negroni, and once again get proof that this cocktail is a good showcase for Navy strength. Mind you, that’s not to say that the Negroni is the best thing to make with Seadog: the fruity/floral character, while rising clearly above the powerful flavours of the vermouth and Campari, does seem to lend the drink a Jelly Baby character, and I’m not sure that is a good thing.

A Seadog Aviation turns out to be more successful. I confess I was expecting this to be slightly pointless and one-note, given that the cocktail has crème de violette in it anyway, but it’s a profound drink with an intense synergy between the sweet and floral notes and the wood tannin edge of the maraschino—definitely a drink where the distinct barrel-aged character of Luxardo really works. Moreover there is a definite dry violet note floating above the sweet/sour/fruit combination of the liqueur and the lemon juice. (I use Bitter Truth crème de violette, which is pretty dry, and not really like a liqueur at all.)

Finally, I try a couple of White Ladies with the Navy gins (gin, curaçao and lemon juice—it should have egg white too, for a silky texture, but I didn’t have any to hand). Both drinks were a success, though for me the refined coriander backbone of the Trevethan makes for an elegant, patrician beverage that nudges ahead of the floral exuberance of the Seadog version.

* This is based on what Martin Price of SW4 told me.

Maraschino: is wood good?

Luxardo's maraschino and Sangue Morlacco cherry brandy. The blossom is
from Greenwich park here in London and I doubt it is marasca cherry

Maraschino is an ancient cocktail ingredient, a liqueur made from marasca cherries. I used to wonder if it was often used mainly to add sweetness, as the flavour is quite delicate, but I recently had a revelation that changed my thinking.

Maraschino has been made in Dalmatia for hundreds of years but in this country the brand with the highest profile has to be Luxardo. Having said that, it’s not a hugely high-profile product at all—I recently ran out and discovered that no supermarket seems to sell maraschino. They have crème de cassis, crème de pêche, sambuca, etc, but not maraschino. In fact I’m sure the only other brand I’ve ever seen is Briottet, though a Google search shows that there are others available in this country, including examples by the other general liqueur manufacturers such as Giffard and Boudier.

Up to now I’ve mostly used Briottet, because it is cheaper than Luxardo (I think the whole Briottet range are extremely good value). It has a light fruit flavour plus a bitter-almond element that comes from the cherry stones that are included in the fermented pulp. But I recently acquired a bottle of the Luxardo version and I was struck by the difference in flavour. Moreover, as Luxardo had early worldwide success, it made me wonder whether this was the flavour that was intended in all those classic cocktail recipes.

The Luxardo brand goes back almost 200 years, when Girolamo Luxardo was sent as a diplomat from the Kingdom of Sardinia to Zara in Dalmatia, which was then part of the Austrian empire. There was a local tradition of making “rosolio maraschino” from the native marasca cherries, which Girolamo’s wife Maria took an interest in. The couple began to experiment with distilling their own from the cherries in their orchard, apparently after spending some years tinkering with the recipe. They founded a distillery in 1821 and things took off for them when the Austrian emperor gave their brand his stamp of approval and it was soon being exported all over the world. (The distinctive wicker wrapping on the bottle was originally to protect it during sea crossings.)

I must admit that I always thought maraschino was an Italian liqueur and, depending on how you look at it, you could say that it is. Prior to 1797 Dalamatia had been part of the Republic of Venice, and after the First World War part of it (including Zara) joined the Kingdom of Italy. The Second World War led to a change of fortunes for the Luxardo company, which by then was being run by the fourth generation of the family. Heavy bombing destroyed the factory and the orchard was burned. In 1947 the area became part of Yugoslavia and many Italian citizens fled; they were persecuted by Tito’s partisans and many were killed, including Piero and Nicolò Luxardo, and Nicolò’s wife Bianca, who were forcibly drowned.

But Giorgio Luxardo founded a new distillery in Torreglia, in the Veneto region of Italy, and started to rebuild the business. Apparently just one cherry sapling had been saved from the orchard in Zara (now Zadar in modern Croatia), and all the trees in today’s Luxardo orchard are descended from that one. The firm is still being run by the same family, now into its sixth generation.

An Aviation made with Luxardo maraschino.
Apologies for the lack of fine-straining

I’m not sure how other maraschinos are made (there is only talk of “maceration” of cherries) but Luxardo make theirs in a singular way. Cherries are crushed along with their stones (and, I gather, leaves and stalks too) and fermented. The resulting alcoholic soup is distilled to produce an eau de vie that is blended with sugar and water to make a liqueur. But the liqueur is aged for two years in Finnish ashwood vats. (The pulp left over from distillation is infused into alcohol and sugar to make their excellent “Sangue Morlacco” cherry brandy.)

The first thing that hits you on the nose with Luxardo maraschino is actually earthy, dry aromatic wood notes, with a hint of Angostura Bitters. The light cherry fruit comes after that. It is not cloying at all, and has a sweet/dry balance (presumably from wood tannins) and a spiritous heat.

I have a habit of adding a splash of maraschino to Manhattan cocktails, but the specific character of the Luxardo product is lost against the woody power of the whiskey. However, in an Aviation cocktail (roughly two measures of gin, half of maraschino, half of lemon juice and a teaspoon or so of crème de violette) that dry wood flavour is quite noticeable.

I can’t find a reference to any other commercial maraschino wood-ageing its product in the Luxardo way, including the Maraska brand made in Croatia, which claims its recipe dates back to the 16th century. Before Luxardo the Drioli brand was a major player (and a previous holder of the Austrian emperor’s warrant)—it was laid to rest in 1980 but I don’t know how widespread it still was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the cocktail tradition was being developed.*

So it is hard to say if, for example, Hugo Ennslin was using a barrel-aged maraschino when he developed the Aviation (first published in 1918). But it is something to be aware of: if you find many classic cocktails too sweet you should try using Luxardo. And if you have been using it and find your drinks too dry and woody, consider using a different brand.**

* Mind you I did discover this website which says the Drioli brand was obtained by Luxardo and it seems to be in production again, though I don't know how widely distributed it is.

** Apologies for reusing a headline from 2014 but the matter here is essentially the same question: with certain spirits, is wood-ageing actually a Good Thing?

Monkey 47: the creature from the Black Forest

Wind-up monkey not included

I like a monkey as much as the next man (more than many, if I’m honest), so I was happy to try Monkey 47 gin, handled in the UK by Spirit Cartel, who also do Four Roses bourbon. The principle hype is its 47 botanicals—seizing the crown from The Botanist, with its mere 35—but it also has an unusual provenance and an exotic back story.

The tale starts at the end of World War II when Wing Commander Montgomery Collins is posted to help run the British Sector of Berlin. A man of varied and fickle interests, he is saddened by the destruction around him and helps the effort to rebuild Berlin Zoo by sponsoring a monkey called Max. He leaves the Air Force in 1951 and, sparked by an urge to learn the art of watchmaking, he moves to the Northern Black Forest region. Unfortunately he proves to have little talent for it, despite his love of watches, so he decides to open a guesthouse which he names Zum wilden Affen (The Wild Monkey—not really something that promises opulent comfort and a restful night’s sleep, but there you go). He is also depicted as having an Englishman’s love of gin and, as juniper is an abundant local ingredient in the renowned Black Forest ham, he starts tinkering with his own recipe, combining spices redolent of his upbringing as the son of a diplomat in India with local forest plants.

The story jumps forward to the early 2000s when renovation of the guesthouse turns up a wooden box containing a bottle of Monty’s gin, labelled “Max the Monkey—Schwarzwald Dry Gin”, with a letter explaining its recipe. Businessman Alexander Stein, after a career in telecommunications with postings around the world, including north and south America, returns to his home in Baden-Würtemberg. He hears the story of Monty and his gin and decides to recreate it.

Of course one takes all this with a pinch of salt, but the modern gin is made by distiller Christoph Keller at the Stählemühle distillery in Oberen Hegau. They admit that they made many changes to Monty’s recipe, which they variously describe as “rudimentary” and “eccentric”, but it does include many ingredients from the forest region, such as spruce, blackthorn, elderflower and bramble leaves, and they place a particular emphasis on the very soft local spring water and the “secret weapon” of fresh cranberries.* (Apparently Alex and Christoph distilled 120 botanicals individually and tasted them in isolation.) Distillation is in very small batches and the process uses both maceration and steam extraction, where alcohol vapour passes through baskets of botanicals, and the finished distillate is aged for three months in earthenware containers before being diluted to 47% ABV with that local spring water.

An Aviation made with Monkey 47

The packaging plays up the heritage aspect: the label is designed like a Victorian postage stamp, with serrated edges, plain paper and just two spot-printed colours. The squat, brown glass bottle is apparently based on an old pharmacy bottle that Stein found while out walking. The stopper is cork, at first glance just a plain one jammed in the top, but in fact it has a metal band halfway down that provides a finite travel into the bottle.

So what does it taste like? Can you pick up all 47 botanicals? No, of course not, but it is certainly complex. For me, juniper is not the first thing that leaps out, but limes, or rather a blend of limes and spices that really reminds me of lime pickle, then juniper and marmalade. There’s a heavy florality that is almost cloying, with coriander seed, lemon sherbet, juicy leafiness or stemminess like geranium, and something woody like cassia.

On the tongue the gin is relatively sweet and smooth for its 47%, with citrus to the fore, plus chocolate, something leafy like watercress, parma violets, orange peel, maybe a hint of cherry. And that lime pickle thing again.

In a Martini with Noilly Prat it is a natural companion to what is quite a citric vermouth; that floral element comes out along with strong coriander notes. But it is also very good with Belsazar Dry (and surely not because they are both German), making a juicy, fresh and balanced cocktail. A Negroni with Monkey 47, Campari and Martini Rosso is fruity and perfumed, perhaps a little cloying but with a strongly bitter aftertaste. In a G&T citrus and coriander spice are to the fore, with a wood-dry finish. As I suspected, the gin makes a good Aviation (gin, lemon juice, maraschino and crème de violette), with that citrus fruit sitting comfortably with the lemon and the gin’s florality at ease with the violette and cherry fruit. It also makes a predictably easy Gimlet (gin and lime cordial), with all those lime flavours sitting comfortably with each other.

It’s an intriguing gin with a strong impact from an unusual flavour profile. Despite the heritage tale, it went through 100 test formulas, accompanied by evaluative tastings with “renowned barkeepers”, so it is clearly engineered for a particular purpose, rather than just being a faithful presentation of a curio from the past. To me it falls into the category of gins that use sweet or floral flavours to make the spirit more approachable neat and perhaps woo consumers who are not naturally drawn to gin. It’s not going to become an everyday gin for me, partly because I personally prefer something more juniper-driven, and partly because it is £37 for just 50cl. But it is causing a lot of ripples, and it does have a picture of a monkey holding a sprig of jasmine on it, which counts for a lot.

* Judging by the “Encyclopedia Botanica” on the website the botanical bill also includes coriander, angelica, nutmeg, grains of paradise, common vervain, jasmine, camomile, marsh mallow and musk mallow.

Your smooth-talking bar steward…*

A friend of mine, who is an actor specialising in historical roles, rang me up in March and asked if I could help him out. He’d taken a small job for English Heritage but had now been given an audition for Mr Selfridge on the same day. Would I mind taking over from him in the English Heritage job?

The entrance hall at Eltham Palace where we shot the video

I’ve never done any acting but the job in question was simply to pretend to be a 1930s cocktail waiter in a video to promote the wonderful Eltham Palace. It’s a place well worth visiting, with some parts of it dating from the time of Henry VIII, and other parts added by Stephen and Virginia Courtauld in the 1930s, including the magnificent Art Deco entrance lobby with wood-inlay murals and a revolutionary concrete dome roof with glass-block skylight. Once you’ve see this room you’ll subsequently notice it cropping up in period movies all the time. Apparently Stephen himself used to make cocktails in that room every day at 6pm.

Stephen and Virginia aboard the Virginia

The team had chosen three cocktails (evidently from the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book, judging by the recipes they gave me), the Aviation, the Mah-Jongg and the Commodore. I admit I had not actually heard of the latter two, but I’m a big fan of the Aviation. My friend the actor had already sourced the ingredients so I just scooped up some ice, brought a carload of vintage glassware and cocktail accessories as set dressing and a couple of dinner suits.

I was surprised to discover that there was no script: I was simply asked to talk as I made the drinks. Fortunately it’s a subject I’m quite interested in so I didn’t run out of things to say (in fact they have wisely edited out a lot of my rambling).

Mah-Jongg the lemur

The cocktails were evidently chosen for the relevance of their names. The Courtaulds had a pet lemur named Mah-Jongg. They also had their own yacht, the Virginia, and even a separate map room at Eltham Palace where they planned their voyages. In fact it was pointed out to me that the entrance hall was designed to resemble the prow of a ship from a certain angle. (Stephen himself was never a Commodore, though—he did serve during World War I but in the army, not the navy.) I think the Aviation was chosen to reflect the popularity of aviation as a sport in the 1930s; after Lindbergh’s solo crossing of the Atlantic in 1927 the world went Lindy crazy for some time.

Aviation
The recipe that appears in the Savoy Cocktail Book is:

⅔ dry gin
⅓ lemon juice
2 dashes maraschino

However, this cocktail originally contained crème de violette too (it is present in the earliest printed recipe, in Hugo Ensslin’s 1917 Recipes for Mixed Drinks). I’ll never understand why it fell out of favour—I can only assume it became hard to get hold of—as it is its presence that gives the cocktail its distinctive sky-blue colour, as well as a touch of floral violet. The recipe I use is:

2 shots gin
½ shot lemon juice
½ shot maraschino
1 tsp crème de violette

Don’t be tempted to overdo the violette as you’ll lose the subtlety and your drink will go purple.

Commodore
The Savoy recipe is:

1 glass of Canadian Club whiskey
1 tsp syrup
2 dashes orange bitters
Juice of ½ a lime or ¼ a lemon

I find it works best if the quantity of lemon/lime juice is roughly equal to that of the sweetener, so my proportions were:

2 shots whiskey
½ shot syrup
½ shot lemon juice
2 dashes orange bitters

Not bad, though not hugely fascinating either.

Mah-Jongg

2 shots gin
½ shot Bacardi white rum
½ shot Cointreau

On paper a rather odd mix, with the gin base augmented by a surprisingly small amount of white rum, but it is actually rather nice. You would not expect to be able to taste the rum, but you can subtly, and I wonder if it is there to smooth off the finish of the gin? As I point out in the video, all the ingredients here are spirit-strength, so it is a potent cocktail.

* For those too young to remember, a reference to the 1990s TV adverts with Stephen Fry

Afraid that I would spill booze over the famous Art Deco carpet, they carefully rolled it back, and I was
interested to see a wooden floor beneath. Staff said they believed it was a dance floor for the Courtaulds' parties

Big Gin makes a big impression

While helping to judge the recent Craft Distilling Expo Gin of the Year, it was my great pleasure to meet Ben Capdevielle and Holly Robinson of Captive Spirits Distilling, part of the wave of “craft”, “boutique” or “artisan” distilling that is sweeping the US at the moment. Based in Ballard, near Seattle, they make Big Gin, both in its standard form and in a version that has been aged in ex-bourbon barrels.

Theirs is not a happy-go-lucky tale of casting around for something to do and hitting on the idea of making a gin on a whim.* Ben is actually a third-generation distiller—his grandfather was a distiller for Templeton Rye** during Prohibition—and the pair spent four years visiting distilleries and experimenting with botanicals and distillation variables before finally launching their product in 2012. “We are using the traditional method of making gin,” Holly explains, “and creating a small scale, boutique brand just using two 100-gallon pot stills. We are exclusively a gin company, instead of making a variety of spirits like most of the budding brands. We have a few other gin-centric products that will trickle out in the next few years…”

Holly and Ben (second and third from the left) at the Craft Distilling Expo Gin
of the Year judging

As the name suggests the idea was to make a bold, unashamedly gin-flavoured gin. “We took this away from all the big players in the gin game,” Holly says. “Consumers are used to drinking Beefeater, Bombay, etc—we wanted something that ginners could identify with, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.” The botanicals are indeed mostly conventional—juniper, coriander, bitter orange peel, angelica, cassia, cardamom, orris—plus grains of paradise (not unusual either, being present in Bombay Sapphire) and Tasmanian pepper berries. The spirit base is made from corn. “This was the most neutral base we found to impart the botanicals,” Holly says.

Uncork a bottle of Big Gin and it is certainly big, with a strong waft of juniper. But it is more complex than that, with orange peel, dried fruit and a pronounced floral note like crystallised violets, perhaps from the angelica. There is also a herbal stemmy quality and a hint of ginger. It is big, bright and rich.

A Last Word made with Big Gin

On the palate it is powerful but remarkably smooth and sweetish, given that it is a hefty 47% ABV. Perhaps the corn-spirit base lends this sweetness. The flavour follows on from the nose, with that floral note to the fore and a slight peppery-bitter finish. It easily works in a Martini or gin and tonic, basically making its own rules. It is well-suited to a Negroni, clearly making its presence felt, whereas more delicate gins can sometimes get lost in the present of the Campari and vermouth.

Another muscular cocktail to test a gin is the Last Word, traditionally equal parts gin, Green Chartreuse, lime juice and maraschino: it has a balance between the sweetness of the liqueurs and the tartness of the lime, but these elements and the herbal blast from the Charteuse can drown the gin. I have to say that even Big Gin struggled here. But I noticed that on Simon Difford’s website he is now advocating a 3:1:1:1 ratio (the 3 being the gin). With Tarquin’s Cornish Gin I find that it does really need these proportions before you can really taste the gin in the mix, but Big Gin reaches that point at only 2:1:1:1.***

An Aviation made with Big Gin

I felt that Big Gin was less successful, however, in an Aviation, being perhaps too powerful for the subtle flavours of the maraschino and crème de violette (of which there is only about a teaspoon, otherwise the colour of the cocktail veers from the pale lilac-blue meant to represent the sky, from which the drink gets its name: try something like 50ml gin, 12.5ml lemon juice, 12.5ml maraschino, 5ml crème de violette).

You can get a sense of the big, savoury qualities of Big Gin from the recommended cocktails on the Captive Spirits website. The Out-of-Towner involves making a fennel syrup (plus gin, lemon juice and triple sec), and two of the recipes use elderflower liqueur (such as St Germain). The Morning Paper tops gin and elderflower with sparkling wine and a splash of grapefruit juice, and there is definitely a continuum between the gin botanicals and the sweetly pungent qualities of elderflower.

Although Captive are determinedly not planning to make a whiskey, they are interested in pushing their gin in different directions, such as the bourbon barrel aged example now on the market. “All the worlds best spirits are aged in bourbon barrels,” Holly explains. “With Big Gin being so flavorful, we thought it could stand up well and one could still actually taste the gin. Thankfully, we were correct.”

A Martinez made with Bourbon Barreled Big Gin

Ageing gin is all the rage it seems, but at a tasting of several of them earlier this year I did feel that none of the examples seemed particularly successful, with the wood notes somehow quarrelling with the essential gin flavour. But there is certainly a tradition: Seagrams have always rested their gin in charred new oak barrels to smooth off the rough edges of the spirit.

The barrel-aged version of Big Gin came as a revelation to me, however. Perhaps there is something about the prominent orange notes in the gin which marries well with the wood flavours, or maybe there is something about these particular barrels (which presumably have had bourbon in them for a long time, damping down the sawmill quality of fresh wood). On the nose the sharp juniper of the base gin is softened but still present, while a warmth and sherried sweetness are added, plus an enhancement of the dried fruit flavours I noticed before and a pleasant woody, almost mossy, mustiness. On the palate there is excellent integration of the aromatic gin elements and the tannic, vanilla wood flavours, plus clear notes of bourbon, emphasising the orange peel.

On a whim I try to make a sort of sweet Martini using Regal Rogue Bianco and the result shows remarkable balance and harmony from two strongly-flavoured ingredients, a little like a Martinez with orange and herbal notes all blending well. I try making a Martinez, using 2 shots gin, ½ a shot each of dry and sweet vermouth and a dash of maraschino, the result is sublime. Likewise in a Negroni it works as well as the normal Big Gin but with an extra dimension that fits naturally, as in a Manhattan or Boulvardier**** (which it virtually is). It really is a revelation.

A Spring Fling made with Bourbon Barreled Big Gin

There is a recommended cocktail, the Spring Fling, that once again uses elderflower liqueur, this time with the barrel-aged gin plus dry vermouth and some celery bitters. It’s an extraordinary tour de force, with the elderflower merging with the big herbal flavours of the gin, followed by a sweetness emerging and woody notes, then a fiery warmth. You also get a sense of sun-kissed Mediterranean aromatic herbs, like thyme or oregano. The prescribed garnish is grapefruit zest, but I only had lemon to hand and its aroma floats over the other flavours, balancing without muddying.

If you like gin then you should try Big Gin. It’s nice to come across a product that is not trying to make a “gin” for people who really want vodka, nor is it trying push the flavour in outré directions for reasons of gimmickry alone. But at the same time Big Gin is distinct. And it is big.

In the UK you can buy Big Gin through Master of Malt for £39.96 and the bourbon barrel aged version for £44.85.

* Talking to Holly you realise that the process of starting up a distillery is more of a bureaucratic slog than most of us realise, especially in the US. “There is a lot of red tape, but mostly several different levels of permitting, each of which cannot commence without the previous—it's a domino game. First Federal, than State, then City, then Fire, etc… Every state/city has different ideas of what/how things should be done. That’s the confusing part. Once that is all waded through, it’s a slow start to getting product out the door.” To help with all of this the couple got a third partner, old friend Todd Leabman, to help with the paperwork and accounting.

** The good folk of Templeton, Iowa, apparently carried on distilling whiskey throughout Prohibition and Al Capone is said to have like it so much he would send a driver all the way there from New York to stock up. 

*** It an interesting experiment, because if you start with the punchy sweet-and-sour traditional recipe and just add more gin, it’s easy to think, “Oh, no, this is getting too dry.” But if you come back to it later and try it you do realise it as a good, subtler cocktail. All the lime and Charteuse are very much there, but now you can taste the details of the gin too. Hurrah.

**** 1½ shots bourbon or rye whiskey, 1 shot Campari, 1 shot sweet vermouth, so a sort of mash-up between a Negroni and a Manhattan. It was invented by New Yorker Harry McElhone after he emigrated to Paris, fleeing Prohibition, and set up Harry’s New York Bar. He created it for ex-pat Erskine Gwynne in honour of his Parisian magazine The Boulvardier.

Opihr gin's eastern promise

We had a Casablanca-themed Candlelight Club event last month and one of the cocktails devised by our mixologist David involved Opihr gin, of which I had not previously heard. Launched last year by Quintessential Brands and distilled at Greenall’s, it describes itself an an “Oriental Spiced Gin”, and the schtick is that the botanicals come from the fabled Spice Route—the interactive website carries you on a sea voyage, taking on board cubeb berries from Malacca, Tellicherry black peppers from Malabar, cumin seeds from Turkey, juniper from Italy, coriander from Morocco and sweet orange peel from Spain. I gather there are ten botanicals in total, the others being cardamom, grapefruit peel, ginger and angelica.

The name comes from a Biblical region, the hangout of King Solomon and famed for its wealth and exotic spices. The bottle is rather appealing, featuring a pair of colourful elephants. What’s not to like about a gin with elephants on it?

Opihr themselves describe the gin as having “citrus notes balanced with earthy aromatics and warm, soft spices”. On the nose the first thing that hits you is a sherbet-like sweetness, then a strong element of limes, oranges, and dry lemony coriander seed. You can detect juniper in there too but it is not very dominant. It’s quite complex, the enticingly juicy Opal-fruit lime character balanced by savoury notes of cumin and maybe turmeric.

On the tongue this gin is strongly biased towards cardamom, which gives it an exotic sweet-seeming approach, strongly redolent of rose. Cardamom is a common enough spice in gin but the heavy presence here serves to make this product smack of the souk. There is coriander too and some black pepper on the finish.

This character persists in a G&T, and also in a Negroni (equal parts gin, red vermouth and Campari). I find that often more subtle gins get lost in this punchy concoction, and it can be a good place for in-your-face spirits such as the Hernö juniper-cask-aged gin with its almost eye-watering resinous juniper fumes. So I was surprised that Opihr’s distinctive cardamom character came coiling up from the cocktail. It works well, with the sweet smoothness balancing against the bitterness of the Campari and vermouth.

An Opihr Gin & Tonic with prescribed chilli garnish

It’s a gin that is relatively easy to drink on its own, and it is possible that (as with D1) this was something the developers had in mind. It works perfectly well in a Martini, the gin’s essential character blending with the bitter herbal elements of the vermouth without trouble. As you might expect, the rose-like quality of the cardamom sits comfortably with the floral character of the crème de violette in an Aviation cocktail (gin, maraschino, lemon juice and violette). In fact you could argue that it blends in a bit too much, almost getting lost. I might have thought that this citrusy gin would be an obvious contender for a Gimlet (gin and Rose’s Lime Cordial), and it is an interesting combination; but the sweetness of the cordial actually emphasises the drier spices of the gin and seems to evoke a bitterness. It’s a somewhat awkward union and I’m not sure this is really the best gin for this cocktail.

One recommended serve is a G&T garnished with a red chilli pepper! I give it a try, and (insofar as a cocktail with chilli in it is a good idea) it doesn’t not work. I guess we are used to the combination of chilli, cardamom, coriander and cumin in curries, and it is normal enough to balance chilli heat with sweetness; while the gin isn’t actually sweet, the cardamom does give an impression of sweetness. They also suggest using the gin in a Red Snapper (a Bloody Mary made with gin instead of vodka), another cocktail with peppery heat in it.

Despite the Spice Route USP, none of the botanicals is unique to Opihr—London Dry Gin, that most quintessentially English of spirits, has always been made with spices shipped in from all over the world. Whether you’ll like Opihr depends on how much you like cardamom and to what extent you think gin really should be dominated by juniper. I assume it is, like so many new gins these days, aimed at people who would not normally drink gin at all, hence the emphasis on the impression of sweetness from botanicals like orange and cardamom (liquorice is often used to achieve the same effect), and the downplaying of gin’s defining flavour, juniper. I quite like it myself, but because of the lack of juniper it would not be my desert island gin.

Boodles gin returns home

The modern bottle design

Drifting through the spirits aisle of Sainsbury’s I noticed that they were now stocking Boodles gin. This took me slightly by surprise—DBS has always proclaimed it to be his favourite gin (and this from a man who has tasted hundreds), but I had never hitherto been able to taste it, as it was no longer available in this country. Clearly that is no longer the case.

The gin was named after Boodle’s, the gentleman’s club at 28 St James’s Street that celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2012. (This club itself was founded by the Earl of Shelburne, later to become Prime Minister, but was named after its head waiter, Edward Boodle.) According to the brand owner’s website it was created in 1845 and was a favourite of Winston Churchill’s (although I’ve also heard that Plymouth was his top tipple.) It doesn’t seem as if it was the house gin at the club, however. Throughout the 20th century it was bottled by Seagram in the US, ownership later passing to Pernod Ricard.

The back label

Made by Greenalls in a Carter-Head still* as a botanical concentrate (i.e. distilled with a high quantity of botanicals, and therefore with a very concentrated flavour), it was, by the time I became aware if it, being shipped to Arkansas where it was diluted with alcohol and water to get its flavour down to a palatable intensity and its ABV to 47.2% (which later dropped to 45.2%). Since 2013, although still made by Greenalls in the same way, it has been owned by Proximo, of Kraken rum fame, and is bottled in Burlington. Although still sold in the US at 45.2%, the version distributed in the UK is only 40% ABV. (This is quite a common pattern.) David certainly feels that the 40% version is not a patch on the higher strength expression.

Boodles famously has an understated juniper component, and this is indeed how it strikes you, the nose offering candied floral notes and something like lemon sherbet. Orange seems to be present, although in fact there is, unusually, no citrus among the nine botanicals—juniper, coriander seed, angelica root and seed, cassia bark, caraway seed, nutmeg, rosemary and sage. I’m guessing the impression of citrus is coming from the coriander and nutmeg, both rather lemony in their way. On the palate it is smooth, with an immediate impression of sweetness on the tip of the tongue, which then dries out. There is black pepper on the finish and, for me, a slight bitter aftertaste. As you add water you get more of an orange/lemon suggestion, and something like violets (presumably from the angelica, the root of which is doubtless adding to the sense of sweetness).

An Aviation cocktail made with Boodles

Some of those botanicals are pretty rare groove. Can I taste rosemary and sage? Not really. I can believe there is rosemary there, though its resinous herbaceous character occupies similar territory to juniper.

I believe Churchill was fond of a Martini, and I can see that the sweet, softness of this gin makes for an approachable example of this drink. I make one up, and get the same floral character with hints of vanilla and ginger. In an Aviation** the gin blends in smoothly and harmonises with the cherry and violet fragrance. It shows warm, dry spice that almost reminds me of turmeric or cumin. I think this gin likes an Aviation, and it’s interesting to note that I thought the same of Gin Mare, the only other gin I have tasted with rosemary in it.

Finally I try a side-by-side comparison with Tanqueray and Plymouth. Tanqueray has an up-front juniper nose and is dry on the tongue, while Plymouth has a softer nose and a smooth palate with plenty of orange peel. Boodles by comparison leads with that lemon sherbet element, which is refreshing, though I’m not keen on that hint of bitterness on the aftertaste. I decided to try and combat the latter by mixing the three gins with sugar and lemon juice. Now the Boodles comes across as coyly sweet and smooth compared to the others (perhaps too much so: one needs to control the sugar), and floral complexities unfold, with refreshing suggestions of lime.

I don’t think that Boodles could become my favourite gin, but I can see how it, like Plymouth, might appeal as a Martini ingredient. Like Gin Mare, it sounds as if it should be savoury but in fact blends best when you consider its forward floral character. But as for gins with unusual herbs in them, I prefer Gin Mare.

* The defining characteristic of the Carter-Head is that, instead of macerating in the alcohol prior to redistillation, the botanicals are placed in a basket within the still so that the alcohol vapour passes through them. This process, without any actual steeping in the liquid alcohol, extracts different flavours.

** Gin, lemon juice, maraschino and crème de violette, although after the last ingredient became hard to find many got into the habit of leaving it out. Of course without the crème de violette, your cocktail does not have the pale blue colour from which its name derives. I use the modern version from The Bitter Truth. You only need a small amount, but the violet note is distinctive part of the cocktail.

Aviation Challenge: Yvette vs Violette

I'm not sure at what point Crème de Violette either became virtually unavailable or simply fell out of fashion—it's interesting to note that, while the first published recipe for the Aviation cocktail, which included it as an ingredient, was in 1916 in Hugo Ensslin's Recipes for Mixed Drinks, by the time of 1937's The Café Royal Cocktail Book and even 1930's The Savoy Cocktail Book and Cocktails by "Jimmy", Late of Ciro's, crème de violette had vanished from the recipe. A 1965 episode of The Avengers actually revolves around the scarcity of the drink. However, today it is one of those "lost" ingredients that is once again manufactured by a number of firms.

Another lost and found ingredient is Crème Yvette, a liqueur that also has violets in it, among other things, and DBS has been encouraging me to try a head-to-head between the two in the Aviation cocktail. I've never actually seen an Aviation recipe that specified Crème Yvette in this way (although the Blue Moon cocktail from about 1940 is the same minus the maraschino), but I notice that the label of the recent rerelease mentions this cocktail by name. In any case, it sounded like an interesting experiment.

Aviation
1¾ shots gin
½ shot maraschino
½ shot lemon juice
¼ shot crème de violette
Shake with ice and serve with a lemon twist

As you can see from the picture, the first obvious different is colour—although in practice both drinks were a bit lighter than they appear in the photo, but it gives you a general idea.

Made like this the classic recipe has just the right sweet/sour balance, with the added floral interest deftly hovering over the top: all the flavour elements are fairly clearly defined. Made with Yvette, the drink has a strikingly similar profile, but is clearly sweeter, both because the liqueur is sweeter but also the berry fruit elements in it come out, giving a sense of intrinsic sweetness, I think, as if there is a dash of Ribena in there.

The crème de violette I used was the Bitter Truth version, and I sense it was intended for cocktails rather than for sipping: tasted neat it is quite dry and single-mindedly a violet essence, presumably with some colour in there too. The Crème Yvette I used was given to me by DBS in a plain sample bottle (he does that a lot), but I assume it is the recent rerelease from Rob Cooper, the man behind St Germain elderflower liqueur. The drink was originally manufactured in the US by the Sheffield Company of Connecticut, but the rights were later bought by Charles Jacquin et Cie—see David's post on Rock and Rye—which was in turn acquired by Maurice Cooper, Rob's grandad. Production ceased in 1969.

Tasted neat, Crème Yvette has a more balanced and complex taste than the crème de violette, with the violets and red berries coming out clearly—it is made with blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and blackcurrants, plus vanilla, honey and orange peel too, I gather.

Personally I think I prefer the cocktail made with the violette: the flavour elements blend harmoniously but each stands clearly defined too, giving the drink a classic simplicity. But if you prefer your drinks a little sweeter than perhaps they tended to be in the Golden Age, give the Yvette a try. It's also possible that the Blue Moon, without the maraschino, restores the sweetness balance. If I've got enough Yvette left in my sample I'll give it a try and report back.

For more Crème Yvette cocktail recipes see www.cremeyvette.com.

I’m the guy who found the lost cocktail

The mysterious bottle

Adopting my usual position at the bar at Graphic at the tasting of No. 209 gin last Monday, I noticed an unusual small bottle filled with red liquid and with a simple label that read “Crème de Griottes”. I asked Adam what it was and he told me that, during the cocktail competition held by No. 209 earlier in the day, a chap had come in with it—and evidently left it behind. Adam thought he’d said he made it himself.

Exercising marine salvage rights, I persuaded Adam to open it. Griottes are a strain of sour cherry and this was indeed a cherry-infused liquor, subtle and complex and not sugary like a liqueur, but with a refined sweet-dry palate. I ordered an Aviation cocktail made with this stuff.

Modern Aviations are often a blend of gin, maraschino and lemon juice but the original recipe, first published in 1916 by the drink’s inventor New York barman Hugo Ensslin, had crème de violette in it too, giving it a sky blue colour. I think the use of this ingredient faded as it became harder to get hold of. Being a sucker for authenticity I’ve only ever had them with the crème de violette, but Adam now made one in which this was replaced by crème de griottes, boosting the overall cherryness of the thing. It was a warm, approachable drink, not too sweet and with its cherry element more subtle that you might expect. It is also quite pink.

The finished drink

I hope this mystery visitor makes his infusion commercially available*. In the meantime if you’d like to sample it it looks as if you may have to go to Graphic.

Pink Sky At Night
1¾ measures gin
½ measure maraschino
¼ measure crème de griottes
½ measure lemon juice

Shake with ice, strain and serve with a lemon twist.

* Having said that, you evidently can get hold of crème de griottes commercially. DBS even found a cocktail online that goes under the name “Demon-Raped Soul”. Don't you just love that aura cocktail-lounge sophistication?