Innehållsförteckning för Jun/Aug 2019 från Gin Magazine

London hosted its first Gin Live event, presented by Gin Magazine, in March 2019. On a sun-drenched and unseasonably warm spring day in the city, distillers and producers from across the globe descended on London for the two-day tasting experience. In total, 16 producers took part in the event, showcasing well over 30 brands. Distillers and ambassadors from a number of brands also lead masterclasses, providing guests with an intimate introduction to their gin, while Gin Magazine’s Sam Coyne presented winners from the World Gin Awards. One of the highlights of the event was Chris Klug from Gothic Gin launching his brand in Europe at Gin Live. Gothic Gin will be hitting shelves in the UK imminently. The event was sponsored by Fever-Tree, who offered advice on gin and tonic…

Jon Hillgren is the founder of the multi-award-winning Hernö Gin from Sweden and is a recent inductee into Gin Magazine’s Hall of Fame. We caught up with him for a quick chat. What are the challenges of making gin in Sweden? I would say logistics is the most challenging part. In the climate we have, getting stock in and gin out when we have two metres of snow in February is a challenge that demands a lot of planning, as well as helping trailers that have gone off of the road due to the harsh conditions. You started distilling in 2012; how has the world of gin distilling changed since then? Well, at that time gin was starting to boom. Even though it was only six or seven years ago,…

Plymouth Gin is more than just a product, from the people behind it, to the history within the walls of the Plymouth Gin Black Friars Distillery, the brand’s home since 1793. As the oldest working gin distillery in England, Plymouth Gin has become a huge tourist destination for the city, without losing its quirky charm and character. Known for its ‘authentic spirit of discovery’, the team at Plymouth Gin are showing no signs of slowing down their authenticity and a recent trip to the distillery perfectly proved that point. We started this trip with a journey from London Paddington down to Plymouth, in a fashion that I’m almost certain has ruined all normal train travel for me. A combination of writers, social media influencers and the Plymouth Gin team took…

Having successfully established The Whitchurch bar and restaurant in Bristol, Pete Lumber went on to open The Newbury in 2012, situated in Berkshire. His passion for wines and spirits has been the driving force behind the experience on offer at The Newbury, as well as part of the inspiration behind the creation of 137 Gin. The idea of distilling the first gin in Newbury was conceived almost two years ago, following on from a casual dinner with a friend. The months afterwards included extensive planning and experimental distilling, ahead of the launch of 137 Gin. Once the planning permission had been submitted for the distillery, Pete began to test out various gin and food pairings, in order to ensure that the dishes created at The Newbury would be successfully incorporated…

Rum is arguably the spirit most closely associated with the High Seas. For over a century, the British Royal Navy issued its sailors with a daily ‘tot’ of rum, but in this modern age when enormous cruise liners rather than battle ships rule the waves, gin is growing in popularity. Many cruise lines now boast swanky cocktail bars and craft gin menus. One German cruise line, TUI Cruises, has even gone a step further and is now ageing its own gin onboard. On the maiden Mediterranean voyage of TUI Cruises’ new ship, Mein Schiff 2, oak barrels containing 225 litres of Saltwater’s Gin sourced from an Austrian craft distillery run by master distiller, Siegfried Herzog near Salzburg were taken onboard. The original gin is made from organic wheat alcohol and…

Edinburgh gin brand, Old Curiosity, has launched a new, Lemon Verbena gin. The bottling is the distillery’s first clear gin and newest edition to its Secret Garden Range. Distilled using lemon verbena from the distillery’s Secret Herb Garden, the gin also comprises base botanicals of juniper, coriander, angelica and winter savoury. It is best served with a slice of lemon peel and a light tonic. The Old Curiosity Distillery is the most recent project from Hamish Martin, a Scottish herbologist and owner of the Secret Herb Garden – a herb nursery in Edinburgh. Hamish comments: “With the lighter nights now rolling in, we wanted to bring the first taste of summer to our fans, and what better way to do this than with a delicious lemon flavoured gin? “This is…

Bombay Sapphire has launched the limited-edition English Estate – a gin inspired by the landscape surrounding the brand’s home in the English countryside, launching in time for summer 2019. The first in a series of limited-edition product innovations due from the brand in the coming years, Bombay Sapphire English Estate is crafted by the master of botanicals and the master distiller at the brand home Laverstoke Mill in Hampshire, UK. Bombay Sapphire is infused with three new botanicals in this new limited-edition London Dry Gin: pennyroyal mint, rosehip and toasted hazelnut. The limited-edition will be available for 12 months only and landed on shelves in April 2019. Ivano Tonutti, master of botanicals comments: “Each botanical in our gin is carefully balanced to create a smooth and complex taste and the…

It’s a well-used trope for gin writers in the UK to doff their caps to the Dutch and acknowledge the role genever has played in gin’s evolution. We like to do it to appear worldly and in-the-know. But, how many gin-lovers, i.e., the real people drinking the stuff, have packed their bags, hopped on a flight (or train as well, these days) and explored the Netherlands and its gin/genever scene? With its major airport serving European visitors and international guests from across the globe, it’s about time that more of us step on to Dutch soil and get to know the brands that are continuing the tradition (or innovating) with Dutch genever and taking it further with gin expressions too. Let’s set just one ground rule for when we talk…

Bogotá isn’t exactly a leader, even for South America, in the cocktail renaissance. But it is a city on the rise, particularly in the dining realm at the mind-blowing World’s 50 Best-winning restaurant, Leo, or other excellent restaurants like El Chato (listed below). While the drink scene may not be as globally savvy as the fast-rising dining scene is in Bogotá, there are a few bartenders who actually play with local ingredients and showcase the wealth of Colombian produce in a better way. In a country where liquor laws and government taxation make local production often impossible, local spirits are few, but these bars know how to best play with spirits — and gin. Segundo Calle 85#12-90 Bogotá www.restaurantesegundo.com One of the city’s best bars hides in Segundo’s chic restaurant,…

Piet van Leijenhorst fell in love with genever comparably late in life, at age 39, soon after starting his career at Bols, one of the oldest distilled spirit brands in the world. However, his love affair with genever has held steady – and even grown – for well over three decades. Van Leijenhorst, Bols’ master distiller, has made it his life’s mission to convince the world to embrace genever again. “It didn’t take long for genever to steal my heart, and I quickly realised how underappreciated the spirit was,” says Van Leijenhorst. I join Van Leijenhorst in the Bols Distillery in the heart of Amsterdam, located in a narrow alley just a stone’s throw away from Dam Square, one of the main tourist attractions of the Dutch capital. When the…

In 2018, British gin makers, Jam Jar Gin, released Morus LXIV. At its launch it was the most expensive gin in the world at retail, costing over £4,000 (~$5,000). Cambridge Distillery’s £2,000 Watenshi Gin held the top spot for a couple years before that, and Nolet Reserve who held the top spot before then seems relatively modest by comparison, at a mere £700! While the race to create the most expensive gin in the world seems to have only just begun, it’s the process that makes these spirits costly, not the botanicals themselves. But that’s not to say that all botanicals are created equally. Some are quite expensive. For example, saffron on a per-kilo basis can cost the same price as a bottle of Morus LXIV! Despite the expense of…

The relationship between gin and the sea is nothing new; historically, Navy-strength gin was consumed by sailors on long voyages – it fared better than beer below deck – while British Royal Navy ships were famously given gin as a cure-all remedy against malady and disease. Today, the associations between gin and the sea still abound, with the UK’s shores and coastlines across the UK influencing the spirit, flavour and make-up of many gins today. Here, we take a look at some of the distilleries you should be getting acquainted with if you like your G&T with a side of sea… COASTAL INSPIRATION The British seas and shorelines have long inspired art, literature, music – and they can now count gin under their remit, too. One such gin to list…

Permanence is reassuring, which is always welcome. Transience evokes other emotions: anticipation, excitement and a sense of urgency. These feelings are integral to a limited-edition release: here it is – but not for long; buy it now or live with regret. It’s a situation we face on a regular basis, as limited-edition gins keep appearing. And then disappearing. Limited-editions span a range of concepts: one being the usual recipe but not the usual packaging, which provides designers with creative opportunities. Bombay Sapphire’s Swarovski edition for example, launched in 2009, utilised the eponymous crystals to add sparkle to the bottle. Design innovation is also part of the process when releasing a new recipe, but the focus is on the master distiller’s imagination. “Limited-editions create variety and showcase the flexibility of the…

It’s often easy to overlook tonic water as a gin fan, simply because we’re fascinated by the nuances and details of our favourite spirits, or perhaps even guilty of trying to encourage people to sip their gin neat. However, it’s still hard to imagine that we’d be consuming gin in the quantity and with the fervour that we are, if the tonic water industry hadn’t received a firm kick up the rear. If we’re saying it helped get the ball rolling on the gin-boom, tonic companies haven’t been afraid to innovate and explore with different flavours and a varying selection of ingredients. New releases are frequent (although still lagging behind the number of new gins that seem to appear each day), and pairing them with specific gins is increasingly becoming…