Half of the UK’s gin production is on the smallest scale: a passionate person, and maybe a couple of friends, making gin by hand exactly the way they want to.
It’s not every day you get to glimpse into the small-scale gin production world. I was invited to hear how it’s possible to give it a go yourself by One Time Gin as they launched their new gin, Red Leaf Gin.
One Time Gin started life as a monthly gin subscription service, partnering with small scale distilleries to release special editions of their gins. Now they’re back with the first gin of their own: Red Leaf Gin. Distilled at Langley Distillery in the West Midlands, home of Palmers 44 Gin, the small batch autumnal gin contains botanicals such as blackberry leaf, hazelnut, and orange. Specifically created as an autumnal gin it really hit the spot, not as light and fruity as a summer gin, but equally not as wooded and warm as a wintery one.
A lot of thought and care has clearly gone into the appearance too, with each of the 112 bottles being wrapped in an illustrated sleeve and sealed with hand dyed wax.
When I arrived at WeWork Moorgate, our venue for the evening, I was presented with a complimentary gin and tonic made with this new Red Leaf Gin and Double Dutch tonic water. We also received 3 samples of gins in one of those quintessentially student-y red plastic cups – resisting the temptation to dive in, we were instructed that we’d be tasting them during the talk from James Grant, founder of One Time Gin.
The first sample was of a floral Welsh gin that has featured in One Time Gin’s initial run as a monthly subscription service. Merywen, being the Welsh for juniper berries, is distilled on an extremely small scale in a 30ltr still with local botanicals including gorse and heather from around the distillery. This was the first size of distillery than we learnt about, where producing a bottle would cost roughly £15, and at the smallest they’d be selling 100 bottles per week.
Over the course of the evening we also heard from Max Chater, the founder of Victory Gin. He also happens to be one of the guides of London’s brilliant Gin Journeys which I blogged about before, so he really knows his stuff. Victory Gin takes its name from George Orwell’s 1984, but the gin itself belongs less in an Orwellian society and more in a socially conscious one. They were the first distillery in the world to provide customers with “eco pouches” rather than glass bottles when delivering new stock. The pouches are recyclable and contain as much gin as 3 traditional bottles, allowing bars to fill up their optics without discarding so much glass each time. This has helped Victory Gin to reduce packaging waste by 80%. It also means you can get them into festivals!
The Victory Gin counted chestnut, cardamom and orange as some of the key flavours. Max said he didn’t want to stray far from a traditional London Dry gin, so it’s still very juniper-led and for me sits alongside the likes of Sipsmith with that type of flavour. It’s a very versatile gin, and I’d be interested to experiment with it in some cocktails.
Having heard from Max, we then briefly heard about the largest size of distilleries – those doing 5,000+ bottles per week in production in stills ranging from 200 to 1,000+ litres. The sheer amount of information being thrown at us though was tricky to comprehend though without any slides or visuals. Unfortunately, James delivered the presentation with the slide of a static logo on a projector screen, which felt like a bit of a missed opportunity to keep our attention for longer.
I left the event buzzing with all the stats and facts (I’m a numbers guy) and excited to have heard about all the innovative flavours and practices that are coming out of the industry. Even just little insights like the name Victory Gin, despite featuring in Orwell’s 1984, wasn’t trademarked until Max decided to; that the V design on their labels is the negative space on a Helvetica V; or even that Red Leaf Gin was called Hibernation Gin until 3 days before the event!
I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on One Time Gin and their interesting creations as they enter into this next phase. Head to their website to find out more, or even buy yourself a bottle* of this limited run Red Leaf Gin.
*Order yours before midnight 30th September using the code FOUNDER and get 10% off your purchase.
Dan eats 