The Birthday & The Botanist Foraging Event

First I would like to say thanks to everyone that came down for our Birthday party, it was one of those rare Gin Club’s now where Kate, Stuart and myself got to ditch the car (#carsgettingditched) and have “some” Gins for ourselves. I completely hogged the Heather Rose.

ginbirthday-1-5

I have said it in a couple of other Blogs, our best ideas are conceived drunk at 1am, Gin Club was one of them. Going to the Cat House when you are 31 after a Gin Club is not up there with the greatest of ideas, but worth it for all the looks “Alternative” teens (btw alternative doesn’t exist anymore, alternative is so mainstream that word is now null and void) were giving us when we were dancing, not a single f*ck was given. Teens really are self-conscious, if only they had had Gin.

So after that minor expletive (I couldn’t find an alternative for that saying), we have moved out of our first year as Gin Club. Again a massive thank you to all you Guests who came along drank Gin, learned about small batch and craft Gin, ate cake, cracked jokes and join Kate, Stuart and I in the art of social drinking. When we started Gin Club (at the time we never thought it would come to anything), all we wanted to do was make something fun but at the same time have something the Gin brands would want to be part off.

So on our first birthday we went back to our first event and used The Botanist, Strathearn Heather Rose, No.3 London and Caorunn. These at the time were our most commonly used and favourite Craft Gins. The Botanist was the first Gin we confirmed for Gin Club and picked up from Lynne McEwan before heading off to Ritchie Patton’s wedding at the time we had the date for the event but didn’t even have a venue. Strathearn is a distillery close to our Perthshire homes and Heather Rose is one of those Gins I go back to time and time again, like a perfume you constantly buy as you like the smell, my drinks cupboard isn’t complete without it. No.3 London was the Gin we used for our first dedicated single brand events, which we did in a Kroma Hair and again who we used for the Abandon Ship online and London shop launch events.

The main difference (other than the free cake, balloons and party bags) between the setup we had at the first event and Birthday party was the garnishes we used: On Friday I met with a lovely man called Gary and there in Argyle street he handed me three bags of greenery, which I in turn handed over money. It looked exceptionally dodgy, but it was just bags of Sorrel and Spruce Shoots, all hand foraged by his himself that very day.

All our Garnishes for the birthday party were garnishes that can be found in environment around us then Foraged to be used in Gin. For Botanist instead of Lemon and a complimenting herb we used Sorrel. It has a naturally and surprising taste of citrus and can be foraged around Glasgow. For No.3 London we went away from the citrus notes and used Spruce Shoots, which add a pine flavour to the gin, when you chew it, its sweet but very very dry. For Caorunn we used fresh brambles, mint and Braebury apples. Wild mint grows all over the UK, Brambles are often the bane of a gardener’s life as it grows quickly and everywhere (Braebury apples are from New Zealand but hey two out of three ain’t bad).

The reason for this change in tact is that as of this Blog post we are announcing our first dedicated single Gin event of 2015 which will host The Botanist.

the botanist

On the 4^th July we are hosting along with The Botanist a foraging event which will start at the Botanic gardens then walk through Kelvingrove park, while stopping along the way to forage for wild ingredients which are used in the production of The Botanist and for botanicals which can be used to garnish or make Gin cocktails with.

The foraging event walk will finish at the Kelvingrove Café on Argyle Street where the lovely Mixologist Danny Whelan will walk you through The Botanist, explaining the tastes and notes as you try it neat. Then you will try three G&T’s all garnished with Foraged ingredients which complement the botanicals which create the fine drink. After that you will get nibbles and a Foraged Gin Cocktail.