Things Not To Do With A Pineapple

That Boutique-y, the hydra-headed bottling offshoot of Master of Malt, produce some very fine drinks. Indeed, I was lucky enough to attend a tasting hosted by the estimable and very congenial Dave Worthington earlier this summer where he let us try a two decades old Tormore which was quite the best expression I've ever had from that distillery.

However, their approach is somewhat scattershot. And whilst an open mind and a willingness to experiment is to be commended, I'd respectfully suggest that some things might be better left unbottled.

As witness this oddity, That Boutique-y Gin Company Spit-Roasted Pineapple Gin Batch 2.

According to the accompanying press release, during the second Golden Age of the Cocktail fruit gins were all the rage. But then, and again according to the press release, the second Golden Age of the Cocktail was the 1950s-1960s, an era which also gave us whiskey flavoured toothpaste and jellied salads. Which makes their judgement in matters of taste suspect, wouldn't you say?

The nose is certainly very pineapple-y. Not fresh pineapple, but the juice, from a carton, or perhaps the syrup from a tin. Hang on though, where's the juniper? Seriously, there's no juniper.

The palate is suprising. It's very thick, sweet, syrupy, and sticky. I'm reminded (although I'm pretty sure it's a false memory) of an old liqueur that's been at the back of the drinks cupboard for years, perhaps a dodgy knock-off Benedictine clone, or a not very orange-y Cointreau-alike. I suppose the faux-Benedictine memory must be the gin botanicals.

In conclusion, bleh. If this had a clear gin character, or fresher pineapple notes, then maybe. But as it is, bleh.

Rereading the blurb, I see that pineapple gin was supposedly also popular in the 1920s. Which means that after this batch of 3300 bottles is done, we ought not to see any more until the 2060s. Fingers crossed.

Beech Leaf Gin

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, so I picked a load of freshly budded beech leaves and put them in a glass jar with a litre of gin dregs.

It must be seven or eight years since I last made noyau, but I was inspired to have another go by @_littlebrowndog, a fellow member of the whisky world who is also responsible for the fascinating #projectPEAT.

The discarded scraps of bud. Very fiddly.

In the past I've not managed to catch the leaves at quite the earliest stage, but this time I was able to select the freshly budded leaves, many of which still had the wispy pink bud covering. This made preparing the leaves rather fiddly, but they were so soft (and importantly, not at all waxy) that the process of extracting flavour is sure to be much faster.

The gin dregs were selected from about forty different gins on the simple basis of whether on not I consider them to be any good. So the bland, the odd, and those with any off notes were rejected. It does mean that there are rather a lot of botanicals competing with the fagus silvestris, but it's so long since I've made noyau that everthing about the process is once again experimental.

I'll update this blog post in a wee while (a few days, a few weeks? Not sure yet) once I reckon the gin is sufficiently green (although I seem to remember it's more of a yellow than green).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freshly picked leaves

Leaves, jar, but no gin.

Needs More Juniper

I'm currently working my way through four dozen gin samples for the World Drinks Awards, a process which was delayed by an absolute stinker of a cold (necessitating a rather busier than anticipated weekend ahead).

Oddly, and despite the name being a bit of a clue as to what the drink should taste like, some of these gins need more juniper.

Or perhaps it's not odd. Perhaps, in the current crowded market of new gins, some poor sods have decided that their USP is going to be Lack Of Juniper. Who knows?

Incidentally, I reckon we have just hit Peak Gin. How do I know this? Well, on the Archers, Toby Fairbrother is trying his hand (and failing) at gin distilling.