#bonboosh

I’ve had messages asking me about the marshmallows featured on Day 30 – Quirky of my Gin A Day May images.  So breaking with tradition, but maintaining a firm ginny link, here’s a little bit more about the brand and a rather tasty discount code for you guys to use too!

Bonboosh is a family business, made up of husband and wife team Amanda and Steve and their 15 year-old daughter, who is affectionately known as Pipsqueak.

Back in 2017 Amanda was made redundant from a role in the corporate world so focused her attentions on experimenting in the kitchen as a very welcome time filler.  She had been working on and tinkering about with a marshmallow recipe and after tasting one of her new creations, Steve announced “Blimey, you could sell these!” Which was apparently rather fortunate, because Amanda had in fact already decided that she didn’t really fancy working for anyone else again.

With that settled, it was time to focus on the business name and branding.  I have it on good authority that this was all settled in the early hours of a Sunday morning, with the assistance of our old friend Gin.  Gosh she is a useful friend to have, isn’t she?

Operating out of their kitchen, in a slightly too small cottage, in a village in north Hampshire, Amanda began experimenting with different ingredients and flavours.  The strapline for Bonboosh is “braver with flavour” meaning it was very important that there wasn’t just a hint of this and a subtle shade of that, tastes had to be bold, striking and identifiable.  Apparently it is for this reason that they haven’t yet been able to release a strawberry flavoured marshmallow.

Marshmallow experimentation has not come without it’s trials and tribulations, mango and ginger can stop gelatine from setting, (who knew) and apparently alcohol can make the mix collapse.  This doesn’t surprise me so much, it has at times been known to have a similar effect on me.  When experimenting with gin, Amanda had to tweak and re tweak the process to get the gin flavours to work…or at least that was her excuse at the time for the depletion in their gin collection.

Some of their early creations included Candyfloss, Choccy Mint, Choc’n’Salted Caramel and London Gin & Elderflower, with Gin & Elderflower and Salted Caramel remaining two of their most popular marshmallows ever since.

It’s all well and good knowing the background, but are they actually any good.  Well, Hubby and I tucked into out fluffy treats and this is what we found.  For starters, he loved the mint chocolate chip ones which was fortunate, because I had already devoured the entire packet of candyfloss ones myself.  Based on the flavours, my hopes were high for the ginny flavoured ones.  First up were the Gin & Elderflower and I was genuinely surprised and impressed to taste some juniper in them, as it’s not often the case with quirky gin products which hit the market.  The Gin & Rhubarb ones were a little more rhubarb heavy but there was definitely still some juniper in there.  Overall I was impressed…and full, and fast descending into a sweet treat coma.

The Bonboosh ethos is that smiles are good.

“We have fun making marshmallows, it makes us smile, and we want our lovely customers to smile when they enjoy eating them. We are all about spreading the Happy, one marshmallow at a time.”

Well, they definitely made me smile, so mission accomplished.  

Times are pretty crazy at the moment and many small businesses such as this one heavily rely on food festivals, craft fairs and summer fetes, none of which are currently running.  So, if you have a sweet tooth, please do go and visit the Bonboosh shop.  They have such a great range of fluffy goodies and if you enter the code GINOBS10 when you are paying then you will receive a 10% discount off your first order.

Happy munching