Proud Parents

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First Birthdays.

Obviously we can’t remember our own first birthday’s (if you say you do then you’re either Stewie from Family guy or your drunk), but we certainly remember other 1st birthday parties.  Having been to a few for my lovely Nephew and Nieces and now (god help us) my friends children, we know the format, crying, napping, half the adults drinking the other half drinking endless cups of tea, the one year old who couldn’t care less about the presents as the wrapping paper or the box is significantly more interesting.  A first birthday party is for the parents.  And if I’m honest they are lovely despite the flu or stomach bug you contract from playing with the little disease carriers (btw I’m getting a little broody in my old age) you really wouldn’t have it any other way.

So like proud parents (god does this mean that Caldo, Kate and I had a child together, remove Caldo from the equation and its normal haha), we move into the first birthday of our labour of love which is the Gin Club.

Our first solo event was the 6th of June 2014, however like a proper child it had a long gestation period, about nine months actually.  We recently did a blog for Ticketweb which describes how to create a club, so I best repeat myself on the gestation period to birth of Gin Club;

Conception

“The Art of Social Drinking” is something Caldo has always harped on about, where people go to a pub and drink nice alcohol and not just get wasted on the cheap stuff, dance and try and get off with people (these nights are ok too though).  Gin Club began while engaging in this Art form, two men in their late twenties, drinking artisan gin while trawling through YouTube for rap battles, Taylor Swift and Mylie Cyrus videos, then discussing the merits of both these two rather good female artists.

From these special moments slumped on a couch discussing which one would our mothers would prefer, a throw away thought in the form of Hashtag (#Ginclub) was born, which was instantaneously shared through each of our failing music and social media sites (it had been a long established fact that a photo of an album got less than 20 likes while a picture of a Gin pour or a beetroot and chocolate cake broke easily into triple figures).  In that one hashtag Gin Club was born (impregnated).

Don’t tell anyone it’s not three months yet

For the next few months we maintained the exclusivity of our club, while the member’s waiting list swelled with people retweeting, sharing photos and Gin Brands evening sending us stock!  But the intake was capped at two with the occasional “Gins a mine”, while our friends drank our expensive Gin and Tonic.   Keeping this cap along with the promotion of Gin and all its merits only increased demand.  Our Gin Club rules came into fruition too.  “No Gordon’s” and “Gordon’s is acceptable if there is nothing else”.

“Your showing”

Once our solid foundations had been set, we had demand, popularity and a thirst corporate engagement the next stage was to float our club idea. In the case of Gin Club this came with getting involved with the popular Brew at the Bog festival.  From this first big venture we had to draft in organised support in the third member, welcome the scientist (not the Coldplay song) Kate.

In developing this idea we had now made contact with all the Gin brands we loved and wanted to share with festival goers in Inverness.  This proved popular as all the Gin was drunk in the first day.

Birth

Our Idea was simple; it wasn’t to be formal Gin Club.  No noising glasses, just Gin served right so people could enjoy something a bit different to the norm and open to all Gin lovers.

Our club needed to be formative but informal so our guests left knowing more than what they did when they arrived without it being forced upon them or with them having to taste everything straight in crystal flute glass while writing notes in a language they would never use.

Fun / Nice were the words of choice, where people loved their night so much they took hundreds of photos, got to a good merry stage of drunkardness but happy their night wouldn’t be a late one.

Then after being at Gin Club they would want to go to a shop, buy a special Gin and realise what they have had in the pub for years is nothing compared to what they could be drinking.

We had the idea, we even had the date, the venue however wasn’t set, but a wee five minute conversation in Sainsbury’s solved that and it was set that we would be hosting Gin Club in a vintage tea room (with cake and the venue matched the feel of the night), then combine it with DJ’s, random props, table games, food (which get very competitive) and mountains of Fever Tree tonic.

Thinking back

I can’t believe that was a year ago!  Thinking of all the meetings with Kate and Caldo in Tinderbox or at Kate’s flat drinking loads of tea and eating way too much cake.

1st Birthday Party

So as it’s been a year we are going to celebrate by throwing a birthday party at the Hidden Lane on nearly the same date (one day out) as our first ever event.  To mark this we will be using the same Gins we started with;

Strathearn Heather Rose

Botanist

No.3 London

Caorunn

There will be all the usual trimmings along with lots of other special surprises.  I’ve been looking for the Happy Birthday song which gets playing in Jimmy Chung’s, can’t find it anywhere.

So get your tickets for the 5th June at the Hidden Lane Tea Room.

Adnams CopperHouse Gin

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For our last Gin for the March Gin Club I would like you all to say “arite hen” to Adnams Copperhouse Gin.

Adnams, in my head make beer (which has since been confirmed when a work colleague who really looks like Peter Griffin from family guy, saw me writing this blog and went “great beer, I used to live next to their distillery), but they have been branching out since 2010 and now make Vodka and Gin (There was really no point in that sentence as if they only made beer and not Gin then this blog wouldn’t have even been written).

Adnams craft their Gin in a very different way to normal, for one they make the base spirit themselves “East Anglian malted barley”.  I know many Gin’s do not do this, not saying that doing it or not is better just different.  Making a base spirit is not an easy task.  Reading up on this process I see words like “beer wash”, which I only know is the initial stage of distillation (see this is actually one of the few times in life Craig Rothney would be handy to have simply to answer questions like What does Beer Wash mean? What is Low Wine? Whats a Beer Column).  This beer wash distillate is further refined into “low wine” before finally ending up as pure spirit.  From there it is infused with six botanicals in their home made copper pot still.

The six botanicals are: Juniper berries, Coriander, Lemon peel, Orange peel, Orris root & Hibiscus flowers.

The only one in here I am not familiar with is Hibiscus flower, I don’t even think I could identify the taste of Hibiscus to be honest.   Doing some reading on the wonder that is Wikipedia, it seems that our new mate Hibiscus was trialled as a fertility drug, however it can also cause mild hallucinations.  Could be an interesting Gin club then!

To try Adnams neat you would get a savoury herbaceous gin with a full hit of juniper, I’ve heard others say oily but I don’t get that texture, which could be my novice tasting skills. We are really happy to have this Gin at Gin Club and hope you taste the Beer making heritage in this Gin, I actually think you can, it’s made very differently to begin with then returned to a traditional London Dry method.

Spirit Christian Jensen

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Number three in our featured Gins for March is the wonderful Jensen’s (another pluralisation, but not one like when people add the S to the end of Miller –that’s Miller lager not Martin Miller’s or when they ask for “sailor Jerry’s”.  Grrrrr).

I have to say my first impression of Jensen’s was skewed.  This was because Stuart decided to experiment with Gin one night and had the Chipotle infused version and thought it would make a mean Red Snapper.  Most people who know me know I am a complete wimp when it comes to spice, I can barely handle a Korma, so Chipotle infused Gin is a bit of a trek for me.  Well I can safely say that after that experience the taste of their Bermondsey Gin changed my initial impression of “holy hell that will burn a hole right through me”.

Jensen’s base is in London and produce some truly fine Gin.  Along with the Bermondsey they have an Old Tom and a fair few infusions like the Chipotle one (everyone except this one appeals to my palate).  I have read that man behind this fine spirit Christian Jensen (Spirit Christen Jensen – sounds like a bluegrass Americana performer), was in Tokyo and feel in love with a certain Gin and was then told that it was defunct.  He then went on a mission and found the recipe for the Gin and worked with a team at Thames Distillers to recreate it.  To test they had it right he bought the lost spirit at auction and compared.  I haven’t worked out what this illusive spirit was thought.

How does it taste:

To smell it comes over with a strong sent juniper (it is a Gin – I might tire of this line), then you almost get sappy pine with coriander and liquorice. You also get fresh ginger, resin and violet. The liquorice carries through to the taste along with the piney juniper.  I read somewhere that one taster was getting Uncooked Runner beans – Thankfully I never got this.  No thanks to runner beans full stop, they remind me of my mother force feeding me them (by force feed I mean stern looks and ultimatums for not eating them).

Thanks

Graeme

Daffy’s Gin

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daffys-gin-70cl-bottle daffys-gin-age-gate

Our second Gin (I say second but remember there are no rules to the order of things in Gin Club, just hand over the #GinMe card and ask for the one you want) we get the feature (says a very excited me) the wonderful Daffy’s Gin.

I first tried this wonderful stuff while doing my now frequent loitering in the Good Spirit Company hoping that Mark will see me standing around and say “have you tried this one”, regardless of if the answer is yes I will say no just so that he whips out some glasses and whatever bottles are open under the counter.  On this particular occasion the answer was No.  I had heard of and seen Daffy’s on the shelf but never tasted and hadn’t read about it (yet).  But before I ramble on about 20 mins one day in the Good Spirit Co I should Segway back into Daffy’s Gin:

Founder Chris Molyneaux explains that he and the “Daffy’s team” spent 4 years on the Daffy’s journey learning, researching and testing.

Taking from their lovely website:

“We started by using the finest pure wheat grain spirit from northern France that we could find, then, distilling it in the same manner as malt whisky on an ancient single batch copper pot still. The botanicals that we steep and distil are a combination of the traditional – juniper, coriander seeds, cassia bark and the new – Lebanese mint and rare variety lemons.

The quality of the base spirit we use, along how we steep and distil our botanicals results in a deeply complex and well balanced spirit that is exceptionally good to drink on its own over ice, in cocktails or as a life-changing D&T with fresh mint and lime.

Lebanese mint as a botanical brings and extraordinary freshness to Daffy’s complimenting our other tasting notes of toffee, citrus, spice caramel and fresh mint”.

The Mint really makes the Gin stand out.  Its tough to place this next to other Gins.

Daffy’s also comes in a little stronger than other Gins at 43.4% proof.  I don’t know about the rest of you but I have grown accustom to stronger Gins over the years and need the larger alcohol content.  It almost makes the strength of the flavours stand for me.  This is probably a total contradiction.

Daffy’s is a perfected product; it feels like it’s afforded the same TLC of Tajima (Kobe Beef) cattle.  It’s a Gin a choose to drink straight which for me is rare.  When you first taste it, it doesn’t feel like a normal gin. It’s feels like a Gin Liqueur, which it clearly isn’t, it’s just crafted so well that it’s easy on the palate; this is a testament to creator Chris Molyneaux’s vision. There is the hit of Juniper but its masked behind the Lebanese mint.  Again you would be fooled into thinking this could be a liqueur because of this, but it is most definitely a Gin, a rather perfect one.   Chris thank you for crafting this!

Thanks

Graeme

Introducing Shortcross Gin

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shortcross-254shortcross-111

Shortcross Gin was founded in 2012 by husband and wife team Fiona and David Boyd-Armstrong at the Rademon Estate Distillery which is located outside Downpatrick, County Down.  To say this Gin is a labour of love for the couple is an understatement.  Going on a Gin journey around the UK, visiting other craft distilleries to see how others did it, then decided on the flavours they want to encompass before going to our old friends Carl and ordering a custom made bespoke still from the German Still makers.  I know what you are thinking “a Gin distillery tour of the UK! What hardship” J.  I’ve been tempted to quit the day job (and evening job) and just go and drink Gin a few times.

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Emulating the Rademon Estate David and Fiona foraged wild clover then added local elderflower, elderberries and home-grown green apples. These regional botanicals are combined with juniper, coriander seeds, lemon peel, orange peel and cassia to a wheat spirit base and then local water is added to the mix.

Best talk about the Gin I suppose, as I always state to taste you really get Juniper (it is a Gin), with elderflower and elderberry hints, particularly on the nose.  Shortcross is very much a classic expertly made Gin. From the mix of juniper and clover with a citrus taste leading to peppery finish, there is also something in the texture which is different, can’t put my finger on it though, which means there is only one thing for it.  Drink more Shortcross Gin to decide!

We are really looking forward to featuring Shortcross at the March Gin Club.

shortcross-192

Thanks
Graeme

Gin and Proposing

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Gin and Proposing.

Let’s just start by saying that this blog post has very little to do with Gin, thankfully by the time the Gin started flowing I was already past the point of no return and Caldo was in charge of the Gin Shed and its contents.

First steps to propose to a woman (or a man it is 2015):

  • You need to wait until she is essentially in tears and is waiting to be asked. Any minor event you are at together be it a walk up a hill or a night out where you end up alone she needs to be expecting it.
  • Don’t’ cave to peer pressure, get into an argument and propose by proxy.
  • Let her choose the ring (making sure she sends you the correct ring information and NOT a picture where the ring is slightly out of shot).
  • Be personal, so what if you’re up a tower in a capital city or any high cliché building…
  • Remember it’s no big deal “it’s just a ring”. (Forgetting this is her confirmation that she is not wasting her time with you and she wants babies and all the rest, a house clearly isn’t enoughJ).

The Method:

Ask your mate Sarah Leonard to sort four lovely ladies to form a string quartet which can play her favourite love song in your conservatory.  For the purposes of “Her” (or my mothers words, “who is she the cats mother” – I have never understood this saying). Her favourite love song is The Book of Love and mainly the Peter Gabriel arrangement which is brilliant as it has a full string intro.

Cover the house and conservatory in fairy lights on the ceiling and church candles on the ground.

Get you bearded mate to play First Day of my life by Bright Eyes after she says yes.

Make sure she is home for 5:30 no later or earlier.

Once she enters signal the strings to play.

Lead her through, watch her cry, get down on one knee and ask “so ehhh.. How about marrying me”?

When she says yes, the bearded one appears and sings.

After that and we are all drinking Champagne, politely inform her that she needs to go get changed as in 15 mins people will be arriving.

At this point revealing that you have organised an engagement party where the guests will all arrive at 15 mins intervals.

Make sure the food from Mad Chef Danny at Bloc arrives and the oven is prepped and ready – On this note I was running around daft for the whole day getting food and booze for the evening, putting up fairy lights and tidying (golden rule, girls do not like visitors when the house is potentially a mess).

Serve food and booze all night, making sure all she has to do is drink pose with the ring, and chat to her friends and family.  My job is to host the thing making sure no glass is empty long.  Making sure you never refuse to not pose as a couple even though it’s one of your most hated things to do on the earth along with having to watch Made in Chelsea.

So that’s how you propose in a lovely personal way.

Lessons Learned:

Ensure the right ring information is provided:  If there are two rings in the picture then do some subtle checking before buying one.  Like me you might think you know her, well you would be wrong!  But don’t worry this corrected itself one night when she was moaning and clearly in a state that it might never happen I said “what if I’ve already bought the ring”.  Sending her into both a slightly happier mood but also panic when she remembered that the photo she sent was dubious.

The following day you may receive a text stating “I found the receipt and don’t get mad but you bought the wrong one”….  Once you have calmed down casually calling the jewlers to explain the mistake only to be told by the love Jade from Bernstones  Glasgow that (she’s a Geordie btw so read it as one) “Don’t worry Mr Macdonald, Rachel has already been on the phone and its sorted, we are resizing the correct ring and it should be ready by next Wednesday, it happens all the time”.

Now if you me; A – you don’t like a woman saying “don’t worry it happens all the time” as it sound like you’re not being the man you could be and B – I have been further demasculinised (is that a word) as not only is the surprise removed but I didn’t fix the problem Rachel did.

Subtly of timing:  Try to be more tactful with telling her when she needs to arrive as being too specific will give the game away.

The Ring Box: Don’t present the ring box upside down, it kills it.

Gin Shed:  Do not say to “just grab some gin from the shed”. Keep it looked.

Your own drink consumption: Don’t drink more booze than the guests and forget to eat.

The Garden secret spew: Don’t say you’re going for “air” then spew in your garden and try to hide it.

The Sleeping host:  Don’t go to your room to plug your phone in, lay down then not wake up until 12:30 the next day, ultimately not saying goodbye to your guests.

Feel free to use this formula.  She did say yes after all.

Now to see how much Gin we can get for the wedding.

Februarys Gin Club

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So the February Gin Club has been and gone.  I might keep this blog short and no doubt it will end up be nothing but praise for the all the Gins involved.

So Friday night started off in our usually way, once again we were minus Kate (this is to make her guilty), she had no excuse this time, no ski trips, no posh boys to hang out with :). And so Stuart (Caldo) and I were thinking “bugger it we will cope”.  Then everyone decided to turn up earlier! Haha thanks Gin Clubbers for causing me to think about being stressed.  Those of you who know me will know I have tried very hard my whole life to not look bothered about anything other than bands I don’t like or my aversion to positive campaigns that involve a three letter word and ignore all counter arguments.

So anyway I was contemplating being stress, Stuart and I were still in our T-shirts, the Garnishes were yet to be cut and essentially we were not ready to go.  It was 7pm you keen keen bunch.  Luckily for you there are fathoms of tea, coffee and cake.  Then by 7:30 we were ready, and you all arrived at the same time.  Then my ever increasing bald patch started saying “oh yay time to grow”.

Boom!!! Don’t think so; cue Irish Ger the man that had just turned up because last week when Gin’d Out Caldo and I say “yeah just… Come… Along…” and he did.  And he served and saved the day.  You all got your gin.

So thank you Ger.

I think this was our busiest one yet. Don’t know why but I think it might have something to the do with the volume of Gin and the length people stayed.  For starters Edinburgh Gin brought their entire stock catalogue for tasting, which everyone did and they brought a mini still to make Cannonball gin.  It’s fair to say there were a lot of merrier Gin lovers.

Some thank you.

The Gin Brands you were amazing.  Jamie (Burleighs), Finlay (Edinburgh) and Ruaridh (Rock Rose).  We love it when reps from the brands come along.  You guys really made Gin Club all that more special, our knowledge on the Gin we serve are limited to what we read and what we get to share depends on how much time we have while running the event, but you all walked round and shared you knowledge and love of your products to every table.  Ruaridh no idea why your Rock Rose empty bottles are in such high demand (folks if you get a chance try some Rock Rose jam and randomly scope it with a massive chunk of random herb).

Just to remind you all we had:

Burleighs Gin

Rock Rose

Edinburgh Cannonball (and all the rest)

Whitley Neill

Some more thanks, obviously you the guests for coming.  Carly Morrison our licensee. The hidden lane and your amazing food.  Ger.  The Gins.  Malky who didn’t turn up and of course the tiny person taking photos called Fiona Mckinlay, she jumped in at the last minute and I always owe her favours

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Mr Neill I Persume

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Whitley-Neill-Gin-Logo

Whitley Neill is distilled near Birmingham, in an antique copper pot still called ‘Constance’ who is over 100 years old. Using exceptionally pure water along with nine botanicals are which are carefully selected to ensure that they are of the highest quality. Whitley Neill’s tagline is “Made in London and Inspired by Africa” which is not only an insight to its creator Johnny Neill who is married to an African woman but also describes some of the botanical choices. In this line up are cape gooseberries and baobab fruit along with more traditional ones such as juniper, coriander, lemon & orange peel, angelica root, cassia bark and orris root.

Johnny established the company 2004 with the aim of offering consumers a new and different gin to those already in existence in the market. Despite the brand being 10 years old and this being Johnny’s first foray into gin he has family experience to back this up (Johnny Neill is from the fourth generation of the Greenall Whitley distilling family).

It’s also a Gin with morality as 5p from the sale of each bottle goes to Tree Aid in Africa to help with reforestation.  One of the few Gin brands along with Elephant Gin giving 15% of its earnings to two Elephants.

To taste you get juniper and citrus notes first followed by a subtle spice and complex finish. It really does not disappoint on the “different” quote as you do get more than you normally get from a London Dry.

We should be serving Whitley Neill with Fever Tree, garnished with a Cape Gooseberry (they have another name which sounds like an STD but no one can pronounce it), in a classic G&T.

Thanks

Graeme

Edinburgh Gin – Cannonball (Not Damian Rice)

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EGD_circle_logo6 EG Cannonball

Our third Gin for the February Gin Club is the mighty company of Edinburgh Gin.  When looking for Gins to be involved in February we weren’t initially think about Edinburgh.  This is mainly because we could have done a whole gin club just on them, their product list seems to grow and grow.  For February’s Gin Club we are getting something rather special, they are bringing along the new Cannonball Gin – along with other goodies too.

Edinburgh Gin is part of Spencerfield Spirit Company and was launched in June 2010. Edinburgh Gin’s parent company – Spencerfield Spirit Co also have Sheep Dip and Pig’s Nose whiskies.

Now here comes the bit we at Gin Club debated for a long time, we always thought Edinburgh Gin was made in England and only bottled in Edinburgh, however…  For the first four years of its life it was made in England in a still called “Jenny”.   Then the spirit was shipped to Edinburgh and a selection of locally sourced and grown Scottish botanicals such as juniper berries, milk thistle, pine, heather were combined with the gin distillate from England, watered down and bottled.  But since summer 2014 the whole process now takes place in Edinburgh – thus ends the argument of Edinburgh Gins true origin.

The Edinburgh Gin range is rather impressive with Raspberry Gin (which we have been told are Rasps from Perthshire – hopefully Blairgowrie as Stuart and I have strict rules about the berries we eat as essentially our entire teenage years were paid for by working on the berries) and Elderflower Gin. And for us we will be using the strong “navy strength” stuff called Cannonball.

Edinburgh Gin has a full juniper hit (I keep saying this but Gins really should taste of Juniper) with heathery notes.  We haven’t tried the Cannonball yet though, I’m guessing it’s the same just stronger.  We might and I say might be making Martini’s for the evening which I want to call Mongs Meg Martini’s (doubtful if this will stick though).

February Gin Club – Rock Rose

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Our second Gin at our February Gin Club is Rock Rose – when I say second there is no order at Gin Club, Just use your GinMe’s and pick which ever Gin you want to try first.

Rock Rose

Rock rose heralds from the north of our lovely country (that’s Scotland in case anyone wasn’t sure) in Caithness at the Dunnet Bay Distillery.  Now this is where I turn into the worst Geographer ever, much like our good friend Ruth Jackson who doesn’t know where anything is.  In my head (for years anyway) Caithness was just a part of Perth which was on the A9 roundabout, exactly where Caithness Glass the company is located.  Thankfully my geography has improved and I know exactly where it is.  It’s a lovely region (in name only I think not officially) near Thurso.

Continuing with a rather Scottish Gin making tradition, Rock Rose uses locally sourced botanicals.  I’m not sure if these go along with the foraging theme many other Gins in Scotland use.  The only botanicals which are not sourced locally is the juniper and the cardamom – now I don’t remember where I heard this as no doubt it was on a night where Gin was being drunk so it might have vanished into the ether of the evening but I remember someone saying that most Gin brands don’t use Scottish Juniper as it’s not meant to be that great.  Someone can confirm this for us at Gin Club though.

Rock Rose is distilled in a traditional Copper Still called Elizabeth and contains Rhodiola Rosea, Rowan Berries, Sea Buckthorn, Blackberries, Verbena, Corriander Seed, Cardamom and Juniper.  I’m sure there are more again trade secrets and all that.

So we have a wee confession on this one.  We haven’t decided how we are serving this at Gin Club.  I know normal we would be describing the perfect pour but Stuart, Kate and I haven’t sat down and went through all the pours yet.

Don’t worry.  Rock Rose tastes amazing regardless so it will be good.

So instead of our perfect taste here is a picture of Ruaridh from Rock Rose buying a new car on the Dunnet Bay Distillery expense account.

Ruh

Thanks

Graeme