#ginaissance

The spirit of the Isle of #Mull from @TobDistillery a malty, herby #gin bought on a recent visit to @DrinkfinderUK #ginreview

Famous for its brightly painted houses that line the main street up to the pier, with a backdrop of tree-lined hills that look across the Sound of Mull, Tobermory is the principal town on the Hebridean island of Mull and the starting point for a trip to Iona. If you stay the night in the town, as I did some years ago, the whisky distillery, originally known as Ledaig Distillery when it was…

One of the byproducts of the ginaissance is the plethora of books about gin, tracing its history, detailing the changes in fashion, and the types that have been developed. Most attribute the arrival of gin to Britain to the ascendency of William, Prince of Orange, to the British throne and his penchant for the Dutch spirit, genever. However, some new research by Sipsmith Master Distiller, Jared…

One of the undoubted success stories of the ginaissance is the ubiquitous Whitley Neill brand which now boasts a range of twenty-three gins, distilled in the City of London Distillery, the first and still only distillery to operate in the heart of the metropolis in 200 years. A welcome addition to their range is their Navy Strength London Dry Gin, boasting a no nonsense ABV of 57%. A marketing…

The ginaissance has sparked off a secondary market of gadgets and gizmos which are designed to enhance the gin drinking experience. Most tend to be flash in the pans, here today gone tomorrow, just trying to cash in. However, amongst the detritus there are a few gems that are worth more than a moment’s consideration. The first are gin stones. Ever gone to the freezer to put some ice cubes into…

According to the doomsters and gloomsters the bubble created by the ginaissance has well and truly burst but if you search hard enough you can still find examples of new gins emerging that are more than capable of holding their own in a still overcrowded market. A frontrunner in the latest wave of new gins is St Sithney Cornish Dry Gin, launched on December 2, 2023, by Greville and Wendy…

Occasionally I come across a bottle that is so stunning that I just must have it, irrespective of what the contents are like. This happened as I was perusing the shelves of the Constantine Store, the spiritual headquarters of Drinkfinder UK, and came across a bottle of Santa Ana Gin. Its label is an eye-catching riot of colourful tropical images in a distinctly Art Deco style. It is a work of…

On a recent visit to Constantine Stores, the spiritual home of Drinkfinder UK, I picked up a bottle of Colombo No 7 Gin, which has a fascinating backstory, a tale of Anglo-Sri Lankan collaboration. The story starts in 1924 when Carl de Silva Wijeyeratne founded the Rockland Distillery, the first on the island of Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, to distil the local firewater, Arack, an alcoholic drink made…

Flavoured gins are not normally high up on my shopping list but my recent raid on Waitrose’s “bargain basement” bin unearthed a couple of interesting ones from Sipsmith. Founded in 2009 in a tiny workshop in Hammersmith as London’s first traditional copper distillery since 1820, their London Dry Gin has always been one of my go-to gins and was one of the first that I tried as I dipped my toe into…