You might just about tempt me with gin-cured salmon during the festive season but, to be honest, the only place I really want to find gin at Christmas is under the tree or in my glass! Here are seven cracking cocktails to see you through the bleak midwinter.
I suspect we’ve all had days when we’ve travelled to work and dreamt of better ways to spend our time. Alan Bottomley, an engineer, was driving to his job when the idea struck him to “make gin and grow Christmas trees”! Although it took a little while to win round his partner, Amy Conyard, his idea wasn’t quite as crazy as it may first sound. His father, Stansfield Bottomley, used to make whisky in the mid-1950s and Alan grew up watching him, fascinated, before learning the process himself in the early 1990s. So it was that, in 2016, Alan and Amy decided to take the plunge and Bottomley Distillers was born.
With the gin bubble showing no signs of bursting just yet, there’s no end of juniper-related gifts on the market this Christmas. Here’s just a few of my favourites for the gin-lover in your life, whether they be book-lovers, young at heart or more charitably minded.
They say good things come to those who wait. Well, I’ve just received something very good and I didn’t even know I was waiting for it. Which is just as well, as it would have been a very, very long wait! For I’ve just received 6 O’Clock Gin‘s new Five Year Aged Sloe Gin!
I’ve been a firm fan of Trevethan Gin ever since I first tasted it courtesy of Little Gin Box, when it sailed straight into my top ten of 2016. Not long after, in my rave review of early 2017, I admired their modest ambition – that anyone opening a bottle should “remember the reason it was created by Norman Trevethan in the first place (was) to be shared” – and tipped them for greatness. They may not have gone for world domination (yet) but boy have they been busy – adding not one, not two, but three more gins to their range – and I’ve been lucky enough to get my mitts on every one.
Gin A Ding Ding 