What you need: 16 oz honey or vanilla flavoured Organic Greek Yogurt (you can use any of our Wild Pots to flavour plain yogurt) 100ml of flat bitter lemon. After this, we wanted to add three further aspects – citrus, floral and spice – to give a balanced gin, which still delivers plenty of complexity. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced when creating your gin? Buds can be pickled. Serve your favorite garnish with 50ml of Isle of Bute Gorse Gin and naturally light tonic over ice. The story of my gin recipe really begins in the Pentland Hills. “This will be marketed as Stirrup Cup and will be aimed at the equestrian market, golfers and shooters on the hill,” says Kim. Use around 200-400g of fruit per litre of spirit. Do not consume a lot. “You’re looking to pick the flowering buds, pinching them from their base and trying not to crush them too much,” explains Kim, deftly whipping off a few with her bare hands and dropping them into the basket. All of our botanicals go into the kettle to steep before we start the distillation. I discovered this to my detriment when I went out picking the dazzling yellow blossoms in Perthshire with expert forager and gin maker Kim Cameron. “It’s easy to make and designed so people go home and try making their own,” smiles Kim. Gin glass. Place two tablespoons of gorse flowers into a mug. • Orange twist. Make sure your kit is clean and sterile to avoid the spirit going bad. I carry on for a while, uninjured, but as soon as my concentration wanes, I’m rewarded with a sharp prick from a thorn. Most are infused with seasonal produce from local berry fields and farms but this year, she decided to branch out and see if she could make gorse syrup and add it to gin. Measure out 250g/1/2lb of caster sugar. Instagram I watch as Kim sieves the flowers from the syrup and adds it to some of her “original” apple-based gin. https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/features/best-fruit-gin-recipes It flowers throughout the year but it’s in abundance in spring.”. Pour 25ml of St Ives Gin into a SILCo. ABV: 43%. Although there are ways to stretch out the distillation process, so we could get more gin per distillation run, it’s just not the way we work. However, it's not simply the juniper and gorse show - there are 17 other botanicals that make their way into Gorse Gin, including grapefruit, chamomile, elderflower and cinnamon, among others. From start to finish how much time has gone into the creation of your gin recipe? Dandelion creates lovely earthy, liquorice flavours and helps balance out the sweetness. All flower wines need added sugar. 5 Spruce tips. The sixth of the 22 gin botanicals, Gorse was long felt to have powerful qualities and associations, particularly in Celtic mythology, probably dating back thousands of years to the very earliest time of myth-making in the Isles of Britain, Scotland and Ireland. These can get you close but nothing replicates the process of distillation itself and we probably ran more than 100 single botanical and combined distillations to get close to our perfect recipe. Raised along the road in Glenmarkie, Kim studied management at Glasgow University before embarking on a career across the UK and Ireland in retail and finance. “There’s increasing awareness of edible plants and flowers and gorse is no secret. “Ouch!” I exclaim, as one pierces a finger. I chuck them aside, and brave the lethal spikes. Bottle Size: 70cl. The sugar will keep well for 6 months. 3 drops gorse flower hydrosol Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake quickly. Gorse Wine Recipe * 12 cups of gorse flowers * 1 gallon of water * 4 cups of sugar (can substitute with honey, 3.3 pounds) Shake up all ingredients apart from sparkling wine into a cocktail shaker filled with cubed ice. Powdered Gorse Flower Sugar Powdered gorse sugar is easy to make and can be used as a flavoured icing sugar to dust over cakes, or blended with a little water to make a rustic icing. Gather 4 large handfuls of Gorse flowers. I absolutely get where this vision comes from with our gin. Because of the number of botanicals in our gin, the overall flavour profile is really hard to describe succinctly (not my forte!!). I chew for a bit, and while I agree it smells gorgeous, I’m not convinced it tastes great. 2. “People have been using it to spice up foods for years; there’s a real sweetness to it. In ‘A Recipe for Gin’, we meet the people responsible for creating Scottish Gin recipes, providing a fascinating insight into the gin making process and the inspiration and challenges of bringing an idea for a gin to life. Gorse is great but it contains both sweet and bitter components. What are some of the key botanicals in your gin? Fat Sam’s: Did you hang out in this legendary Dundee nightclub. The bottling technique: Add your spirit to a Kilner jar or another sealable container. The final touch is adding a gorse flower to the side of the glass, and ta-dah, we have a “Gorse Collins”. Cariad Gin is artisan craft gin made in a traditional copper alembic still and a recipe based on six essential botanical and the infusion of the finest locally hand-picked gorse flowers. Step 2. We use a traditional juniper, coriander and angelica base. Bruise the petals up, then pour in some boiling water. I sample some gorse gin, neat, and wow – it’s a taste sensation. “Have a taste,” offers Kim, passing me a gorse flower. “Then, just as it’s off the boil, I add the gorse and that’s when it macerates and turns into syrup.”. Ice. For as little as £5.99 a month you can access all of our content, including Premium articles. Alternatively, put the gorse flowers in a winemaking bucket and pour on hot water and leave for 24 hours. Premium content — exclusive to our subscribers, Artisan producers’ tasting box brings top Angus food and drink lines straight to your door, Deferring P1: Nursery funding to delay school start will be ‘too late’ for many children, Cooking during lockdown helped Carnoustie self-confessed foodie deal with Crohn’s Disease diagnosis, ‘Pea and ham fae a chicken – now that’s clever’: We look back on iconic TV food and drink adverts from the 60s to the 00s. Remove any twigs and wildlife from the gorse flowers and add them to the boiling water. Next time I do this, I will go armed in thick clothing and better fitting gloves. After entering her product into the World Jampionships in Perthshire, her mum suggested adding the by-product of her mass jam-making – an excess of fruit juice – to gin. The inspiration behind Gorse gin is simple – to capture the amazing smell of gorse blossom in a gin. One of the biggest challenges came from the gorse itself. The Fife coast, along with other regions of Scotland, is covered in it so it seemed like a no-brainer! Lundin Distilling create Gorse Gin in Fife, balancing the necessary traditional juniper-y goodness of gin with a hearty helping of locally-foraged gorse. Then fine strain into a wine goblet dusted with caster sugar and coconut flakes, then garnish with a long lemon twist (squeezed and dropped in). Twitter GŴYR: Rhosili has the same classic London dry base but this time with foraged Gorse flowers, sea buckthorn, lin den flowers and fresh lime zest. To make a gorse-infused spirit, simply infuse a handful of fresh gorse flowers in vodka or white rum for a couple of days, strain and add a little sugar to taste if you like. In a shaker pour the flat, bitter lemon (if it’s not flat, whisk until it stops fizzing), the elderflower cordial and gin. In all, we use 22 botanicals, but we lead with orange (bitter and sweet), move into a honeyed floral section using chamomile, elderflower and gorse, before finishing with some warming cinnamon, caraway and black pepper. … 1. During this time prepare your jars (sterilise them, etc...) and pop a small plate in the fridge or freezer, ready to do the drop tests. As a classic gin, we use a classic method to make the gin. Gorse flower jelly One of the simplest, but one of the most important, things you can do would be to try to replace sugar with honey wherever feasible. 07751 514 271 hello@clwydianrangedistillery.co.uk https://clwydianrangedistillery.co.uk/ “I take sugar and water and bring it to the boil,” explains Kim. Step 3. “Gorse is everywhere you look – on hedgerows, at the side of roads, in fields – and the smell is just sensational,” says Kim, 39. The honey bee is a keystone species. You can learn more about the maker by clicking the links below. We make very conservative cuts during our distillation process, which helps us ensure we capture the very best part of the distillation for each batch. Each batch is hand distilled at our craft facility in Cornwall. The recipe only takes a few minutes to put together and works just as well too if you substitute Elderberry with Rosehip & use Honeysuckle/Dandelion or Gorse Flower Shrub. A commitment which also includes hand-peeling over a thousand fresh grapefruit or foraging gorse flowers from prickle laden bushes. Gorse Jelly. METHOD OF PREPARATION: Flowers as a trail-side nibble, or use to make tea or wine. We caught up with Iain Brown, founder and distiller, to learn more about the recipe for his signature Gorse Coastal Gin. Facebook Use about 25 g of unrefined sugar to 2 tablespoons of dried gorse flowers and powder in a spice/nut/coffee grinder. Gorse flower to garnish. • Lemon wedge. Generally, I’d describe Gorse as a citrus-forward gin. 10ml elderflower cordial. When her father took ill, she returned home, took over management of Peel Farm (she no longer manages it) and established the Jam Bothy. The resulting drink, made with the help of a 17th century recipe, outsold Kim’s jam and hence, the Gin Bothy was born. You can learn more about Lundin Distilling here. Infuse for around 8-10 minutes, then strain. How does she do this? Some of the earthy, honeyed flavours have been described as being like the smell of sand dunes on the coast after a warm summer’s day, flowers and fauna blooming in the sunshine. Garnish with a slice of grapefruit, a wedge of lime and micro-basil. The sweet nectar that hides itself away at the bottom of the bud trickles onto my taste buds. I’m a visual person, so to me there’s a real warm yellow, bright sunshine aspect to the gin. We caught up with Iain Brown, founder and distiller, to learn more about the recipe for his signature Gorse Coastal Gin. Established in 2016 and based in Fife, the Lundin Distillery produces a variety of Scottish spirits including Gorse Coastal Gin and Ripple Scottish Berry Gin. Simmer for 15 minutes. Bright yellow and with the scent and flavour of coconut, gorse flowers make a fantastic gin, as Gayle Ritchie discovers. Flowers have been used as a dye for Easter eggs. At the time of conception, I was in the process of trying to bag every one of those hills, much like I am with Scottish gin bagging. As with many things, we found less is definitely more! Bring the gravity up to about 1085 (gorse wine likes being a touch on the sweet side) and adjust the acidity with a teaspoon of citric acid, or … Then, when you're ready, wham up the heat to get a full, rolling boil. Trevethan Gin is a quality handmade gin created using our traditional family recipe perfected in the 1920s by Norman Trevethan. The small quantities that we produce help to create our unique flavour and give every batch its own signature character. The recipe for the updated Trevethan consists of 10 botanicals – juniper, coriander, cassia, angelica, cardamom, orange peel, lemon peel and vanilla form the far flung ingredients, whilst Cornish elderflower and gorse flower – handpicked from the hedgerows of a dairy farm in Trenelgos – make up the local elements. • Butterfly pea tea flowers & lemon wedge. Foraging for gorse flowers is a dangerous business unless you go dressed for battle. © DC Thomson Co Ltd 2021. Bright yellow and with the scent and flavour of coconut, gorse flowers make a fantastic gin, as Gayle Ritchie discovers. The petals of each flower are enclosed by a hairy, yellow cover (the calyx to be precise) which has a faintly bitter taste. The idyllic, tranquil Fort Cumberland has inspired our Gin recipe with three key botanicals foraged from the site: Elderflower, Gorse Flower and Sea Radish. The gin was created in conjunction with the estate of Dylan Thomas and it celebrates the zest and vitality of the young poet who loved Gower. Juniper and coriander seeds are the only ingredients in the gin that are not sourced from New Zealand. Add plenty of ice, then top with premium Indian tonic water. Gorse flowers bring a gorgeous coconut like aroma. Certainly, the traditional saying, “When gorse is out of bloom, kissing’s out of season” has a strong element of truth in it – but spring, when every bush turns bright yellow, is the best time to pick. I’m not quite so brave, so I sport a pair of oversized gardening gloves and lean in to the prickly bushes with great caution. Botanicals: Juniper, Hand Picked Gorse, Coriander, Angelica, Lemon, Vanilla and … Awarded a Bronze medal from the acclaimed International Wine and Spirit Competition in 2019, for contemporary styled Gin. • 37.5ml Isle of Bute Gorse Gin • 25ml lemon juice • 12.5ml sugar syrup • 37.5ml Butterfly Pea Tea • Sparkling wine • Lemon twist and butterfly pea tea flower to garnish; Method: 1. • Fresh pineapple & coconut. Measure out 600ml/21fl oz of cold water. Then add your infusing ingredient and leave it to leach into the spirit. Make sure they are insect free – gorse does tend to attract tiny little black bugs, so pick through them well. “There’s real theatre in food and drink whether that’s seeing a gorse flower decorating a cocktail or having strips of chocolate peeking out of a glass. Dorset Dry Gin From the southern coast of England, Conker Spirit, launched in 2014 by intrepid entrepreneur Rupert Holloway, has created a refreshing take on the classic London dry with ten botanicals including the bright notes of elderberries, marsh samphire and gorse flowers, all blended with British wheat spirit and New Forest spring water. Cocktail recipe Kaye’s spiked punch Ingredients. Kim, who runs the Gin Bothy from an old forge near Kirriemuir, has spent the last three years hand-making batches of artisan gin. Fort Gin with Nautical Zest. Bring to the boil gently, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Take off the heat and stir in the sugar until it is dissolved, add … Gorse Gin was our first gin and the process of creating it started long before we began to distil in our distillery itself. Jan 5, 2016 - It was a cold and frosty late afternoon on December 30th when Zillah and I decided to go chasing Gorse flowers. Gorse Gin is an intentionally classic London Dry gin. LinkedIn. Flowers and roots provide a yellow dye for clothes. The distillation process is efficient at stripping flavour so we had to be very careful with the amount of gorse used in order to get the benefit of the honey and caramel flavours but avoid some of the harsher elements. Foraging for gorse flowers up the Onamalutu valley. All Rights Reserved. Even then, as we began to scale-up our recipe, we continued to tweak the recipe over the first 6 or 7 batches to achieve the final gin we have today. “They can pop some into their hip flasks to keep them warm.”. The basket is filling up slowly but most of the flowers have been picked by Kim because I can’t grip a sodding thing with these gloves on. Climbing over a barbed wire fence, we fight through thistles and bracken to reach the yellow manna. Method. 25ml gin of choice. Beginning with botanical infusions (bathtub style) we created a library of flavours to work from. A warm sunny day is ideal and Kim and I gather up a wicker basket and head to a site just along the road from the Gin Bothy HQ. The abundance of Angus and Perthshire fruits allows Kim to work through the year, producing exciting new gin flavours. I love to graze on Gorse flowers when I walk. “With gorse, the natural colour is so bright and it really makes the gin pop.”. Carefully-tended flowers, from her rose garden are slowly vapor distilled with wild roses and plants from the mountains around the distillery to make this an intensely floral gin. Vibrantly bright, Gorse certainly isn’t a timid plant. Recipe really begins in the gin as £5.99 a month you can gorse. Capture the amazing smell of gorse blossom in a winemaking bucket and on. Winemaking bucket and pour on hot water and bring it to spice up foods for years ; ’. Whips up a gorse syrup in minutes the petals up, then pour in some boiling water sweet nectar hides! 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