Spirited News 05/2021: Irish Gin
Well, even in our own travels in Ireland, we mainly focused on beer and whiskey. However, the distillery scene on the green island is more diverse than that! This is why the Tourism Ireland invited some fellow Drinkstagrammers and me to an online gin tasting with Mike Tobin. All in all, I want to present to you my favourite three here.
Northern Ireland
The tasting was organized like a round-trip through the Irish island with altogether five gins to try. The first I want to write about is the Killowen Native Irish Botanical Gin. Brendan Carty distils his gin in the smallest distillery on the island in a still which he constructed himself. The Gin uses eight botanicals, namely angelica root, elderberries, fuchsia flowers, juniper, lemon peel, meadow sweet, mint and rose hip. The resulting gin is very well balanced with clear juniper notes. However, it is also complex with hints of elderberries and a certain sweetness I only afterwards associated with meadow sweet.
The middle
The Lough Ree Distillery produces the Sling Shot Gin in Lanesborough. They use peat as a botanical for their gin named after the slingshot that killed Queen Maeve while bathing in the loch. Apart from that, lemon peel and mint are also used. I especially enjoyed the gin’s mint note. It was complex and reminded me of water mint, but at the same time did not overwhelm the whole flavour. I can imagine this making excellent Gin Fizzes or Richmond Gimlets.
The wild west
I can agree with Mike that the Ireland’s Western coast is one of the most beautiful landscapes I ever saw. To reflect that, the Beara Distillery uses seawater in their Ocean Gin. The list of botanicals includes angelica, cardamom, coriander seeds, grapefruit peel, fuschia flowers, juniper, lemon, lime, Orris root, orange, and sugar kelp. You can taste the sea salt in the gin. However, the seaweed notes in it tend more towards a slight sweetness. Apart from that, you will find classic juniper forward flavours. In the end, the gin leaves the same sensory experience as a little sip of seawater. Furthermore, I decided to mix up a small Gin & Tonic and combined the gin with the Thomas Henry Botancial Tonic. It turned out great, with a combination of saline notes and classic juniper forward botanicals.
Salty Gin & Tonic
Built – Old-Fashioned glass over ice cubes – top off with tonic water;
Garnish: Lemon Half and Black Peppercorns;
Song: Old Sea Brigade – Salt;
*The fact that I received a product reviewed in this article for free, did not – in any way – influence the rating of said product. The gins were provided by Tourism Island.
