Virtual Gin Tasting Programme Saturday 24th February 2024

We are delighted to be bringing you a Virtual Tasting EVERY MONTH and the line up for February is very exciting one indeed…

As this is the first of our monthly tastings, we wanted to bring you some gins that have been a staple in The Gin To My Tonic community such as Zymurgorium Distillery and Stag Distillery. As well as showcase some new spirits to have joined us, like Welsh Wind Distillery, Thunderflower Distillery and Raw Honey Distillery.

Hosted by The Gin To My Tonic, each distillery / creator will open their doors LIVE and share their story to date, tasting notes, and perfect serves, entwined with distillery tours, gin making, cocktail making and fascinating gin trivia to enrich your own personal journey of gin discovery.

Take part at home, either LIVE on Saturday 24th February 6pm-8.30pm, or watch at your own pace with the recording.

ZOOM ACCESS LINK: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84473707865

The Gin To My Tonic Perfect Serves 

This year we are delighted to have partnered with Artisan Drinks Co. Please find below our recommended perfect serves to help you get the most out of the experience with us.

Welsh Wind Premium Dry Gin with Artisan Classic London Tonic & garnish with Orange.

Zymurgorium Syllabub Lime Gin with Artisan Amalfi Lime Tonic & garnish with Lime.

Thunderflower Orchard Spiced Apple Gin with Artisan London Tonic & garnish with Green Apple.

Raw Honey Zesty Raspberry Gin with Artisan Skinny London Tonic & garnish with Raspberry.

Stag Spiced Gin with Artisan Yuzu Tokyo Tonic & garnish with Orange.

The Welsh Wind Distillery story began with a 1000 mile walk, no honestly! Ellen & Connor decided to alleviate the frustrations of work and stresses of life by walking around the whole of Wales, a whole 1,047 miles to be precise. This walk connects together 870 miles of beautiful Welsh coast path with Offa’s Dyke, the historic border that runs from Chepstow to Chester. Although the distillery itself didn’t come to life for a few more years after their walk, this adventure was most certainly the catalyst for In the Welsh Wind Distillery.

Over the three months of their walking adventure they found time to talk, dream and believe again. Wild nights camping on beaches and cliff tops, joined together with hard miles proved to quiet and simplify their existence enough for them to see where they might go next – the spirits industry.

One of their favourite parts of running their own distillery is being able to politely close the rule book of tradition and explore the undiscovered in terms of spirit creation, which leads us to Welsh Wind Premium Dry Gin.

Oranges, Cinnamon, Clove, Ginger and Tea-soaked Currants are the base botanicals in this gin, creating a sense of warmth in every sip. Very citrus oil rich, creating a beautiful, cloudy louche when tonic is added, releasing the essential oils. Dry fruit sweetness supported by juniper, citrus and a symphony of spices are all flavours to be sipped and enjoyed with this gin.

Zymurgorium, an interesting word! Well, this interesting Manchester based distillery created its name from an amalgamation of the word Zymurgy and also Emporium. Zymurgy is the study of scientific brewing and an Emporium is a shop that sells various items and trinkets, so with Zymurgorium selling various brews and distilled creations it kinda makes sense.

The second gin we are tasting is Zymurgorium Syllabub Lime Gin. A quintessential British dessert that was a staple throughout the 16th to 19th century’s, the syllabub was generally made from whipping cream together with sweetened wine, so why not create it with a gin?! Being such a cultural treasure the team at Zymurgorium thought this too appropriate to ignore; so set about making a gin that fits such an iconic delicacy! Full frontal lemon, lime & pine with a note of warm oats.

Thunderflower Distillery was launched in 2018 by Dom & Anicca O’Nions and is based in Devon.  They are currently moving into their new Distillery and Tasting Room, where people will be able to come and visit and discover the wonders available.

Dom originally learnt to distil with a view to running gin making classes at their own Devon culinary school and the subsequent passion for distilling led to the development of the kind of full-bodied, London Dry Gins that they both love to drink.

After much recipe development they decided to enter their resulting Thunderflower Gin into the regional Taste of the West Awards where it picked up a Gold Award, giving Dom & Anicca great encouragement to bring the gin to market and ever since Thunderflower Distillery has enjoyed success building a strong following amongst craft-gin enthusiasts.

After scaling up production in 2020, they now run a 200 litre pot still from their nano-distillery that produces our award-winning premium spirits as well as custom gins for local hospitality brands. At weekends Anicca can often be found running a stand at a gin event or food festival while Dom is busy distilling.

This gin has been born of a desire to create a social product of our time, with the most natural components in a way which complements their environment, delivering a delightfully unique twist of pleasure to the palate.  Nothing fancy in itself—Raw Honey Distillery products are born out of simplicity—but the result will deliver a far more complex experience than the sum of its parts would suggest. Raw Honey Distillery gin is more ‘Mother Nature’s resin’.

With honey as the signature ingredient at the Raw Honey Distillery they naturally have a healthy appreciation and respect for nature and in particular maintaining and growing a healthy environment in which bees can thrive. Moreover, Raw Honey Distillery source their honey direct from a single artisanal beekeeper.

Both Ed & Sam wanted to create something that no-one else was doing and that led to the process of making their gin from honey via fermentation and triple distillation, rather than a bought in grain spirit method. It was through a combination of Ed’s (and his Wife Joanna’s) Beekeeping contacts that allowed them to source the quality and quantity of honey required to start this project, and Sam’s background in Chemistry, Winemaking and Distilling that brought it all together.

Starting as a mobile bar events company in 2017, they had a passion for spirits from a cocktail point of view. Having been in the spirits industry for a while, they wanted to start working on something of their own.

Knowing that it was going to be gin and that it had to be versatile enough to be drunk on its own, with mixers and in cocktails it soon became clear that they would be going for two different styles of gin. Both were to be juniper forward the first to work with lighter and citrusy cocktails and the second was to be for the perfect negroni as well as the spicier, more earthy style cocktails.

Once the recipes were finalised it was time to decide how to get them produced, the decision was to have them distilled to their recipe by someone else. Running the bars and events took up enough time and trying to make gin on top was not going to work with their current business. After much research, they found Laurence at Wharf Distillery in Towcester. A small independent family business like them and it all quickly fell into place! and we were up and running with the test run. They used their first, test run batch to stock their own Sip ‘n’ Swig bars as the house gin and it was so well received, the name Smooth came from customers that loved it so much!