The distillery was started in 2009 by Sam Galsworthy and Fairfax Hall, formerly Fuller’s and Diageo reps in the USA, with writer and drinks historian Jared Brown coming in as master distiller and recipe guy. They bought a garage in Hammersmith (formerly owned, it turned out, by legendary beer writer Michael Jackson before he died), obtained (through a scary amount of effort) the first new distilling license for a copper pot still in London for 189 years, filled the garage with a beautiful 300l still made by Christian Carl that they named Prudence (after one of Gordon Brown’s favourite traits, so the story goes) and started making gin and vodka. They don’t do it alone, though – they also have a nice chap called Chris who does the day to day distilling. So, between the three of them, Jared being an occasional visitor, they produce a large amount of booze, the increasing quantity of which Sam seems genuinely shocked about.

Their production process is quite simple – obtain barley based spirit and redistill it. If they’re making vodka that’s it, but if they’re gin-ing then they add the botanicals to the still and leave them to macerate overnight (if I remember correctly – there is a distinct hole in my notebook where my notes from my first visit to the distillery should be) before redistilling. Both vodka and gin are brought down to their bottling strengths of 40% and 41.6% respectively using water from Lydwell Spring, the current source of the Thames up in the Cotswolds, adding yet another London-y string to their bow.

However, my most recent encounter with Sam, Fairfax and Jared was for a slightly different reason – it was to do with fruit. Last year they produced a sloe gin for the first time, starting with 10kg of sloes in May 2010 for experimentation and then moving swiftly up to a first batch using half a tonne. Rather unromantically they matured it in the black drums that their barley spirit is delivered in, but on release it flew off the shelves. This year they decided to up the stakes a bit and went for 4 tonnes, a lot but not quite in the league of Plymouth and their 50 tonnes per year. Like the chaps from Plymouth they couldn’t be doing with pricking all the sloes so took the ‘cheating’ route of freezing them for 3 days to cause the skins to burst (a technique that seems to have varying levels of effectiveness in the home), before adding them to a high proof version of their gin, to aid flavour extraction, along with a small amount of sugar to help the process along. I tried last year’s and it was rather good – sticky, sweet and with enough of the original gin flavour coming through to let you know that it’s ‘proper’ sloe gin.

This year, however, they decided to add a couple of new things to their range. Sitting in the no-man’s land between released and not is their Fruit Cup, a Pimm’s like beverage that’s meant to beat the market leader hands down for taste, and a damson vodka – the reason for my recent visit to the distillery. I was invited along to their late launch party (we’re already selling it at work, so I hope they did a few more) and rocked up to their convenient-for-my-office-and-home distillery to be greeted by a hot garage with some smelly cheese from La Cave à Fromage, some grub from The Ginger Pig, a pile of London drinks folk and a bar manned by Jared and Graphic‘s Adam Smithson. The focus of the evening was to have a bit of a party, drink some drinks and judge a competition. The week before I had been sent a bag of sloes by PR queen Rose McCullough to use to make some kind of interesting recipe to bring along to the party – the best recipe using the supplied sloes or damsons would win a mixed case of boozes and the never ending respect of our peers. Unfortunately I ended up drunk in The Netherlands at Maltstock and singularly failed to make anything. I have since pricked all 2lbs of sloes and stuck them in bottles with varying amounts of gin and sugar, but that’s a story for another day. Anyways, the winner was Ailbhe of Simple Splendiferous who made a rather impressive Damson relish, just pipping Becca of How to Make a Mess‘s sloe syrup to the prize. Anyways, enough food – drink.

I managed to get a bit of the Damson Vodka on its own, but most of the evening was focused around cocktails. While it does work well as an ingredient I think a bit more time spent on the vodka as a drink in its own right wouldn’t have gone amiss, as it was rather nice. On the nose it was very reminiscent of a Sloe Gin but with a bit more of a jammy edge – red fruit, plasticine, sticky boiled sweets, a hint of sourness and a heavy underlying richness. To taste it was as thick and sticky as you’d expect from a fruity liqueur, but was definitely not sloe gin – cherry jam, hints of prune, old ruby port and a buttery finish. It doesn’t quite have the complexity of the sloe gin, but it does have a lot of excellent fruit and is one that I wouldn’t mind sipping.

Cocktail-wise we started off with a Damson Royale – Damson vodka topped up with champagne, as with a Kir Royale. I’m not the biggest fan of champagne, but this did exactly what Kir Royale’s do – champagne with the edge rounded of thanks to some sweet and sour fruitiness. As the evening moved on some cognac started getting added for a bit more buttery fruit. With the damson vodka falling behind on number of cocktail recipes Jared and Adam did a bit of on the fly creation and put together a combination of damson vodka, gin, champagne and amaretto, that worked rather well and was speculatively christened ‘Damson on the Fly‘.

The sloe gin was a bit more established with two solid cocktails – the Blackthorn and the Blackthorn No.4. The former is a simple mix of 2-1 sloe gin to sweet vermouth that I suspect I will trying when my maturing sloe gin is ready. The No.4 was much more interesting – a combination of equal measure of sloe gin, Jameson whiskey, gin and, according to the recipe, amontillado, although I’m fairly sure they were using La Gitana manzanilla instead. Either way it was a great cocktail, with the sloes providing sticky fruit, the gin a punch and some aromatics, the whiskey a warm buttery base and the amontillado a bit of dry astringency. One that I will definitely be trying around Christmas time and a perfect excuse to buy even more sherry.

Anyways, as you might be able to tell I rather like the Sipsmith folks. Luckily they do produce good stuff (although their vodka recently got a bit of a thumbs down on the Bitters & Twisted blog) which I rather like drinking (although my house gin is still Tanqueray – I need to do another vertical gin tasting to try and see beyond the brands and kickstart my rubbish gin flavour memory) so I feel slightly less of a shill when I write a fairly glowing piece such as the above. However, their enthusiasm for making tasty boozes rubs off on you after a few minutes at the distillery or even just having a chat in Waitrose (one of the more random places I’ve bumped into Sam: doing a ‘Try my gin’ stand at the Westfield branch – it’s not often you see a company’s co-founder handing out samples of their booze on a Saturday afternoon down the supermarket). Long may they continue.

Sipsmith Sloe Gin
Sloe gin, 29%. ~£22

Sipsmith Damson Vodka
Damson vodka, 28%. ~£24

Palinka has various descriptions ranging, depending on the opinions of the person doing the describing, from fruit brandy to schnapps to death in liquid form. It’s a clear spirit distilled from fruit and still retaining some of the fruity flavour of its ingredients. Palinka as a term has been pretty widely applied to a variety of fruit based booze over the years, but since 2002 it has been enshrined in EU law as coming from Hungary (and a few places in Austria in the case of apricot palinka) and restrictions have been placed on the definition. Only certain fruits can be used (Plum, apricot, pear, cherry, quince, grape and maybe chestnut) and there are also designations for various aging techniques (lengths of time, wood or steel containers, with fruit in or not). Unfortunately I didn’t get to taste much in the way of variety – one with some fruit in and the rest just clear, young (as far as I could tell) fiery palinka.

Pajor Mézes Ágyas Cigánymeggy (Cherry) Palinka – Mézes means honeyed and ágyas (literally ‘bedside’, according to Wikipedia) indicates that the palinka has been matured with fruit in for at least 3 months. This was the first that I tried and the least favourite on the table. Coloured red from the steeped fruit and tasting strongly of fresh cherry it was very sweet and cloying from the honey.

Kecskeméti Barackpalinka – Apricot palinka from the Kecskemét region, one of the combinations of fruit and area that has been made a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO). I couldn’t make out the producer on the label and my internet searches weren’t helped by the fact that almost all kecskeméti apricot palinkas use a similarly shaped tall thin bottle. This one had a fantastic fresh apricot nose, with both sweet and sourness coming through. However, it tasted like rocket fuel, with the neat alcohol aquavit-like dryness swamping any fruity flavours that survived the distillation process.

Valódi Szilva (Plum) Palinka – This was the type of palinka that I was told was most common and popular, and I can both see why and not at the same time. On the nose it had very little plum, retaining a general sour fruit note and little else rather than alchohol. To taste it had a strong sour schnapps flavour which I rather liked, but which noone else at the table did. This was unfortunate as our waiter gave us a complimentary round of them at the end of the meal and being the most polite person at the table I felt compelled to drink them so as not to offend our hosts. Or so I claim. The evening is hazy from then on.

Gündel Birsalma (Quince) Palinka – The only other time I got to try some palinka, after a meal at Bagolyvar (the more downmarket sister restaurant to Gündel, one of Budapest’s oldest and most expensive restaurants). This was the best of the lot, with loads of quince on the nose and a nice combination of booze and fruit to taste.

In general Palinka was not my thing – smells like fruit, tastes like death. I pinned my hopes on the second spirit on the list – Unicum. Unicum is a brand name for a type of herby, bitter digestif produced by the Zwack family since 1790 and seemingly everywhere in Budapest. Along with the regular Unicum they also produce Unicum Next, a lighter sweeter version that I grabbed a bottle of to bring home. Zwack don’t only stick with Unicum, being also a producer of Palinka and other spirits, running tours around both the Unicum factory and their distillery in Kecskemét.

Regular Unicum is a thickish black liquid that looks rather worrying. It has quite a punch on the nose, with strong bitter herbs, liquorice and wood. To taste it’s, to me, almost unpalatable – very bitter indeed with a heavily tannic aftertaste behind the initial pleasant herbs that removes any enjoyment I might have had from it. It reminds me a bit of the bitters that I used to buy little bottles of at the supermarket checkouts when I lived in Vienna – easy for me to smuggle back to the UK as illicit booze for my 16 year old self to try and get drunk on. Filthy stuff with a flavour that stopped me from ever drinking enough to get tipsy.

The Unicum next is quite different – browny red in colour and much more liquid. On the nose it has the distinctive bitter herbs as well as a sugary sweetness and hint of citrus – a bit like candied orange and lemon cake decorations. To taste it removes the bitter punch of regular Unicum, keeps the spice and herbs, and adds a syrupy sweetness to the finish. The citrus peel, that I assume is in the bitter mix, comes out and adds a hint of bitterness to the aftertaste. It’s got an almost ‘Christmassy’ taste to it and a slug of it in a glass of red and you’d have instant mulled wine. A block of ice waters things down a bit too much, but a frozen bottle would be perfect – thickening up the spirit and adding a refreshing cold kick to the rather pleasant flavour.

Unicum
Keserü likör/bitter spirit – Hungarian herb bitters, 40%

Unicum Next
Citrosos gyógynövény-likör/citrus & herb infused spirit – Hungarian herb bitters, 30%

The MacPhail Collection 1969 Glenrothes. I grabbed a tiny taste of this at Hawksmoor while I was visiting to try out the ice ball machine. 39 years old and a recent acquisition, it’s much loved by the bar staff and they wondered if I’d agree. I did. Vanilla and spicy wood on the nose with struck matches, salty caramel and pepper in the mouth. Water softened the wood into vanilla and brought a background of charcoal. Tasty.

Blanton’s Single Barrel – Barrel 153. A 65% cask strength bourbon. I was chatting with the Hawksmoor bar staff about whiskey, having had a shot of George T Stagg (one of my most favourite whiskies, which there will be a post about sometime soon), and they ‘forced’ a taster of this on me. A bourbon that I was not that much of a fan of when I got a bottle for my birthday a few years back, this reminded me of the good elements of that bottle – prickly and perfumed on the nose, it tasted spicy and woody with a weird astringency not unlike PVA glue. A drop of water added a stack of vanilla. A rather complex and interesting whiskey, more savoury than most bourbons I’ve tried.

Port Charlotte PC7. One on the ‘find and try’ list for a while, this is from Bruichladdich‘s ‘other’ distillery. On the nose it was salty with mulching seaweed, which developed in the mouth to a citrusy charcoal burst and a buttery mouth feel. A drop of water piled on more smoke and a strange salty sweatiness. Impressive.

Horseradish gin. Not one on the menu on its own, but this is the base for Hawksmoor’s new brunch menu‘s drinky centre piece – a bloody mary. They make theirs (the ‘original’ way) with gin, and infuse a large jar of Beefeater with thumb sized chunks of horseradish to make an interesting starting point for the drink. The horseradish smooths out the bumps in the normally fairly rough Beefeater and adds a beautiful spicy warmth to the flavour. I’m off to buy some bottles, gin and a chunk of horseradish later today so I can make my own – I assume it’ll be great in a bloody mary, but it also tastes nice on its own.

1800 Anejo Tequila. Cactus based booze is definitely on my list this year (especially after speaking to Johan Svensson about agarve tequila recently) and I grabbed a shot of the second cheapest anejo that The Texas Embassy sell while abusing their free chips and salsa policy the other week. It had the classic salt and pepper tequila smell but was a chunk more complex to taste. A woody centre with fruitiness turning bitter on the finish. It burnt on the way down and after it had gone left drying tannins that turned to vanilla. Interesting and a place for me to start from.

Marble Chocolate Marble. A present left for me by Alan after my whisky tasting the other week, this is the produce of the Marble Arch brewpub in Manchester. I was meant to be up there this weekend and had already planned a 20 minute dash into the pub to buy some more of their beer, but unfortunately had to cancel my trip. The Chocolate Marble is excellently chocolatey, despite not containing any chocolate as far as I can tell. Stout-ish, as it says on the bottle, bitter-sweet and mouth filling, it may well be my favourite bottled beer I’ve had in a while.

Hop Back Taiphoon. The first of my birthday present beers (thanks Dad!) to disappear down my throat. It’s a weird one this, with a lemongrassy tinge that makes it taste more like a shandy than a regular beer, but with a dry malty aftertaste rather than the sweetness you’d expect. I’m still not sure about it and suspect I need to try another…

I don’t travel much, being afraid of places were I don’t speak the language as I am, but my comfort zone was well and truly kicked in 2008 when I ended up in Bulgaria for a friend’s wedding. In standard fashion I used the opportunity to sample the local booze and other than some fairly average beer (I probably didn’t find any of the good stuff due to staying in a posh hotel and keeping away from random bars due to the aforementioned not speaking the language issue) and rather good Rakia my only exposure was the Mastika that I picked up in the airport – Mastika Peshtera.

I’d not encountered the stuff before and even had to look up on Wikipedia what it was before I grabbed a couple of bottles to bring back. After some wrangling with customs in Zurich (during which both bottles were confiscated, due to the Bulgarian airport staff not putting the right date on their tills and thus my receipt, and then carried through the terminal to where I was waiting once the customs guy had, unasked by me, pursued my case for keeping them with his superior. I like Zurich) I finally cracked a bottle when I got home and got my first taste.

It’s a strong, oily, aniseed spirit which is quite overpowering neat, fading quickly from an initial sweetness to a pleasantly bitter aftertaste. Over ice it opens up nicely and tastes like a bitter anise. However, the addition of water in any form leads to a strange reaction – it goes cloudy (expected) and a white solid precipitates out, sticking to the sides of the glass (not quite so expected). This grainy solid is quite worrying at first, but the effects of the drink are quick and your vision soon fades…

Other than the white gunk the most disturbing thing about this Mastika is the hangover it produces. It reminded me somewhat of an absinthe hangover, with everything seeming slightly more real, including the functioning of every organ in your body. Along with that, however, it adds all of the hallmarks of a regular hangover, making the day after significantly more painful than it might have been otherwise.

While doing some firkling on the internet to find out how a) to write Пещера in roman characters and b) anything more about the stuff, I found some of its advertising on YouTube. I’m not sure if this is standard Bulgarian advertising (I was too busy wandering around trying to find military museums to sit and watch TV), but it’s certainly a step on from our usual XXXX ads here in the UK. Warning: Contains sexual themes, a very tiny pair of bikini bottoms, music played on a Casio keyboard and men hiding erections.

I’ve now run out, having finished the second bottle last week (the bottle that I had given to a friend as a present and that he had left behind in his flat when he became my landlord) and I suspect I won’t be going out of my way to get any more. However, if a bottle crosses my path again I may still be tempted to pick it up. I suspect the memory of the hangovers will have faded by then…