It's nice to see small fry beat the industry giants. The Telegraph reports:
Two friends are celebrating after they scooped the global drinks industry's top gong - with a gin they made in the spare room of their two-bed semi-detached house.
Martin Jennings and Lukasz Dwornik decided to dip their toes in gin-making after one too many sub-par G&Ts in their local pub.
The pair couldn't afford to open a specialist distillery so they bought a 35-litre copper still and made space for it in the spare room of Martin's house in Bournemouth, Dorset, by moving the sofa bed out. Martin, 50, and Lukasz, 35, had to wait seven painstaking months while HMRC debated whether to grant them a licence to start their unusual distillery.
After finally being given the green light they began experimenting with more than 100 different ingredients for their gin while still juggling their day jobs.
The pair did away with many common botanicals like coriander before settling on an unusual combination including lavender, mulberries and tilia flowers.
Despite not having a bottle label for their creation they entered it in the San Francisco World Spirit Awards, considered to be the most respected and influential spirits competition in the world. To their surprise the gin - called Pothecary - won a double gold, the competition's highest accolade, seeing off competition from the world's top gin producers in the process.
There's more at the link.
I enjoy a gin and tonic now and again. I'll have to look for a bottle of Pothecary. Sounds like it'll be worth trying. Meanwhile, you can read more about it here.
Peter
One always loves to hear an underdog story. Though Gin is most assuredly not my drink.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet that you and I COMBINED couldn't afford a bottle of this...
ReplyDelete- Charlie
If I recall the story correctly, it was ~36 pounds per 500 mL bottle. Depending on exchange rates, I think that works out to 80-90 dollars for a typical-for-the-US 750 mL bottle.
ReplyDeleteQuite a bit higher than the gin I typically buy, but compared to some of the multiple hundred dollar high-end whisky/whiskey choices out there it doesn't look too unreasonable as an indulgence.