Guilty pleasures - we’ve all got them. But ‘in the year that was’ 2020, a lesson learned for all of us is that perhaps we need to start considering pleasure as being guilt free? You know, time is short and life’s for living and all that. Take some of my personal experiences for example... I... Continue Reading →
Cherry Rocher; Mont Blanc Gin
So there I was. Cradled in the arms of a gentleman, who was much more my senior, taking the benefit of his body warmth to shield myself from the winter chill... The be more precise perhaps, I was lying limp in the arms of an elderly gentleman, who by this point had become alarmingly visually... Continue Reading →
Inverroche Distillery; Good first impressions
‘Who’s the new guy?!’... you know what it’s like. At one stage or another we’ve all been that ‘new guy’. There’s a weird sense of nervous energy and palpable anxiety of taking in your new surroundings, just hoping that you don’t trip over your own feet or do anything untoward that’ll land you with a... Continue Reading →
Bullards Coastal Gin
I knew it was a mistake from the very first second I did it. And in the clarity of the moment, when the self realisation kicked in, what I had done chilled me to the bone...literally. Ahhh British summertime. You really can’t beat it can you? With Coronavirus in full swing this year, our little... Continue Reading →
Red Door Gin; Meet the Makers
I’ve been a long time fan boy of Red Door Gin. And when I say ‘fan boy’ I mean that I may as well have posters of them stuck up on my bedroom walls! Ever since its release in the summer of 2018, Red Door Gin has been an ever present on my gin shelf.... Continue Reading →
SOS Gin, Scotlands Other Spirit; Meet the Makers
I was recently stood in my kitchen staring at a message in a bottle. Though this was a very different kind of ‘SOS’ altogether... Rather than a cry for help, this was actually the latest gin drop to arrive from north of the border; SOS Gin, Scotland’s Other Spirit. I was recently very fortunate to... Continue Reading →
SOS Gin; Scotland’s Other Spirit
I don’t speak Flemish. And on reflection, it was perhaps a risky move on my part. But there we were, stood on a Belgian canal bridge, with a decision to make and not much time to act. So we did the only thing we could...we made a run for it! Rewinding slightly, and it was... Continue Reading →
Tarquin’s Southwestern Distillery
I saw his face drop, to punctuate an awkward silence, as soon as the words had passed my lips. It was a look that signaled both annoyance and despair, a difficult balance to strike but in this case masterfully executed. But you know what stung the most...the genuine sense of disappointment. Ouch! So what had... Continue Reading →
Gin d’Azur; A product of the sun…
So there I was. 10 years old and I’m sat there in the back of an aging Ford Mondeo with Eric Clapton, Van Morrison and Simply Red frontman Mick Hucknall... We’d been in the car for around 10 hours, with plenty more road left ahead of us, but the guys were diligently taking it in... Continue Reading →
Sipsmith Chilli & Lime Gin
I knew that I had made a terrible mistake when I realised that my eyeballs had started to sweat... Of course, years later, my wife would try to have me believe that the beads of precipitation streaming down my cheeks at an alarming rate were actually tears. I’ll leave you to be the judge of... Continue Reading →
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