Our Christmas gin special includes some of our favourites available right now.
The proliferation of gins in recent years has removed the old conundrum (“Should we go for Gordon’s or Beefeater?”) with a new one (“Er, which of these 3,000 gins is worth a go?”). So we’ve picked out some of the best around right now, from ones with a Christmassy feel to others which, for one reason or another, make outstanding gifts.
The plain, unadorned label let us run an interesting blind taste test on this Christmassy gin from the Manchester Gin Company’s distillers. What do you taste, we asked our guinea pig?
The first three were spot on, and a cinnamon stick is one of the garnish suggestions for this classy-looking bottle. It’s pricey at £35 for a 50cl bottle, though.
Not exactly Christmassy, but a marvellous surprise — this newcomer is an absolute belter of a gin. There’s a real kick of mango from the moment you uncork the bottle that delivers a huge burst of smell and flavour. The makers’ website lists a few cocktail ideas and this seems ideal for such shenanigans, but even a simple G&T tonic is lifted to something exotic.
Is this the best-looking gin bottle on the market today? There’s a lot of competition for that honour, but this unusual French gin — named Comte de Grasse 44°N, a reference to the distillery’s latitude — is up with the best we’ve ever seen. The incredibly complex taste — with notes of grapefruit, samphire, jasmine, bitter orange and honey — doesn’t disappoint, but seems almost secondary: this is a bottle to give real visual wow factor to your drinks trolley.
‘Please can you send me the link? Will buy INSTANTLY’ was the immediate reaction from one of the Country Life staff on being told of the existence of this gin, via a Teams message, back when it launched in the Spring.
Shockingly, not everybody was quite as excited. Those people are wrong. How could you possibly not love a gin distilled with oranges, fresh orange peel, cocoa powder and real-life Jaffa Cakes?
Bathtub Gin has long been a favourite on the Country Life shelf — it really is cleverly balanced with juniper and citrus, but also more unusual notes such as cardomom and coriander. Plus, there’s that fabulous brown paper bag packaging, which shouldn’t matter but… well, it’s all part of the fun. And that prohibition-chic feel is even stronger when drunk from the tin mug with this gift set.
Whitley Neil’s rhubarb and ginger – that’s their purple one – was the first tipple to really convince us that flavoured gin has a place in the drinks cabinet. It’s sensationally good, and has quite rightly gone mainstream in the last year or so. Since then they’ve branched out in all sorts of directions, with everything from blood orange to parma violet flavours – this lemongrass and ginger iteration has a wonderful Oriental twist. It feels like it’d be better drunk on a verandah in South-East Asia than a living room in Sussex, but it’s probably as near as you’ll get to bringing a touch of the former to the latter.
There’s a fine line to be trodden when blending a flavoured gin. Too gin-like and you leave people wondering why they didn’t just get a ‘normal’ gin; too sweet or flavoured and it can seem sickly or gimmicky. Warner’s are among the best at walking the tightrope — and though their Christmas cake gin packs in the grin-inducing flavour, it never crosses the line. Not cheap, but hard to imagine a more fun mid-morning starter-for-10 tipple on Christmas Day.
There’s no getting away from it: the frankly hilarious label on Cait Sith gin looks like an album cover for a 1980s heavy metal band. Throw in the rather funky name — which sounds like a character from one of the Star Wars prequels — and we were intrigued upon uncorking. We needn’t have been: this tipple from Colonsay is utterly superb, with subtle hints of orange and vanilla which really lift it above the norm. As you’d hope: the it’s pricey at £35 for a 50cl bottle.
It might sound as freaky as a cornflake sandwich, but trust us: this one is absolutely worth a try. Think grapes rather than wine and it all begins to make more sense; there’s almost a sloe gin vibe as the hint of Shiraz comes through into the gin flavours. It’ll also lend a wonderful rich colour to cocktails, and is very good mixed with bitter lemon.
What better for Mother's Day than a bottle of 'Mother's Ruin'? We've selected some of the finest gins on the market which are sure to give your long-suffering parent a treat.
This is our now-legendary collection of Mother’s Day gin, but if you’re looking for non-boozy alternatives for Mother’s Day then our Mother’s Day gifts round-up is just the thing.
The Craft Gin Club have made their name by producing gin-by-post subscription boxes with an extra twist: as well as a bottle of the spirit itself, they also provide all sorts of bits and pieces to go alongside it. And they’ve brought that same idea to their Mother’s Day gift boxes.
The pick of the bunch is the ‘For A Special Mum’ bundle, which includes one of the most beautiful bottles of gin we’ve ever seen: La Distillerie de Monaco, which has all the charm of a 1930s Art Deco poster. As well as this heavily fruited gin there are also half a dozen bottles of Lovely tonic water, lemon & thyme olives, sugared almonds and some dried raspberry and juniper garnish. The flowers you see above, sadly, are not included.
The spelling of this gin’s name is perfect for Mother’s Day across the Atlantic, but for those who go with a ‘u’ rather than an ‘o’ it’s still more than worth a look: this is a punchy, blackcurrant flavoured gin that pulls no punches with its strong flavouring. It makes for a delicious drink — albeit one that’s some way away from what you’d normally think of as G&T — that is good with tonic but perfect for cocktails.
One of the Country Life team, Rosie Paterson, spends most of her life in Salcombe these days — so clearly she has tried the gin.’I’ve tried quite a lot of it,’ she says, sheepishly. It’s not cheap, but it is lovely —and the card people at thortful.com are doing an offer of a card and a bottle for just over £42.
One Gin — whose Sage & Apple gin has long been one of our favourites — have put together a gift hamper with Miss Macaroon, bringing gin and macaroons together in a collection of real loveliness, with a company whose profits go to help long-term unemployed young people.
The ‘large’ hamper has a full bottle plus 21 macaroons (the flavours are spiced apple, sage, mandarin, lemon and tonka bean) plus two gorgeous copper mugs, while a smaller version has two 5cl miniatures plus seven macaroons (in lemon and tonka bean). The gin is lovely, and the macaroons as good as you’d hope for — especially the quite stunning lemon flavour.
Looking for all the world like the sort of thing they’d have swigged in Tsarist Russia, this grand, almost imperial-looking bottle is the sort of eye-catching concoction that you’d love to have on your drinks trolley — as well as something that looks far more expensive than £20 (its current offer price). There are notes of vanilla as well as blackcurrant, and it makes a wonderful G&T garnished with berries.
The Scottish gin maker Caorunn has not ventured into the world of flavoured gin before now — not too surprising, when you consider how tricky it might be to balance their regular mix of dandelion, heather, ‘coul bush apple’, bog myrtle and rowan berries with something else. But this raspberry edition is an intriguing prospect.
‘Hand-made in Herefordshire’ reads the label on the bottle of this delicate, floral gin which has a strong whack of gin’s traditional juniper notes — not something that you can say of all the gins on this page. Elderflower is a lovely taste that seems perfect for the season as we head into Spring, and the fact that this comes in a pretty and hugely tasteful bottle is an extra bonus.
‘We wanted to create something to celebrate the English spring,’ says the eponymous Tarquin, aka Tarquin Leadbetter, who runs this small distillery near Padstow. It’s a beautifully elegant gin with a lovely balance of floral and fruity notes — and for something a bit different, it makes a fun fruity cocktail. 50ml of the gin with 25ml of lemon juice and a teaspoon of strawberry jam, shaken with ice, strained into a jam jar and topped with a splash of pink bubbly. Okay, perhaps this recipe is a bit more hen party than mother’s day, but it’s certainly different.
Rather than sell ‘normal’ miniatures, Drinks by the Dram have their own bottling: wax-sealed 30ml containers, each with a different liquid inside. The benefit? They can be put into gift boxes like this one with 12 different gins included — and there are some crackers included. Old favourites like Conker , Bathtub and Tobermory gins rub shoulders with more avant-garde choices such as Copper Republic Rooibos & Grapefruit.
Marmalade gins are have been around for a while, but the one which best channels the spirit of a slice of marmalade on toast is this: Slingsby’s of Harrogate Marmalade Gin. Now, they’re doubling down on that, selling a 50cl bottle in a gift set with a jar of their own marmalade, made with tangerine and the gin itself. Boozy gin is usually more afternoon tea than breakfast in bed, but on Mother’s Day anything goes.
The various flavoured gins of Warner’s (formerly Warner Edwards) never disappoint (or at least, not yet), so their idea of a ‘Gin Rainbow’ gift set seems a perfect way to show that off — even if their maths is a little out (not that many people will be complaining that this ‘rainbow’ actually includes eight gins). Varieties include sloe, lemon balm, rhubarb and raspberry.
There’s also a ‘Pink by Nature’ set of three miniatures — the strawberry and rose is phenomenal.
Neroli oil — otherwise known as orange blossom oil — is more commonly found in scented cosmetics rather than drinks, but in this gin from That Boutiquey Gin Company it shows a bit of versatility. It’s a delicately floral gin that retains a citrus note, and which packs a surprising punch from such a pretty bottle.
Ed Brown is arguably Britain's top expert on elderflowers — and here's his favourite method for turning them into something rather special...
Ed Brown has something of an obsession for elderberry trees: he’s been the man in charge of the National Collection of 147 sambucus species and cultivars since 2008.
Ed runs Cotswold Garden Flowers near Evesham, where he grows — and sells — hundreds of varieties of elderberry trees. One thing he doesn’t do with the flowers, however, is make cordial.
Instead he makes elderflower ‘Champagne’ in 25-litre buckets and decants it into receptacles recycled from local wedding venues. The old bottles have their sticky labels removed with a pressure washer, while wire fastenings and corks come from a local wine shop, along with the yeast EC-1118.
The result is a bubbly with an alcohol content of 12 -14% — and if you can’t get to Ed’s nursery to pick up a bottle yourself, here’s how to make it.
Ed Brown’s elderflower Champagne recipe
Ingredients
Makes around 25 litres
4kg sugar
15 lemons
800g elderflower flower heads
EC-1118 Champagne yeast (Lawson’s and Amazon both sell it online if your local shop doesn’t stock it)
Method
Boil two kettles of water and dissolve the sugar into it in your 25l bucket.
Add the zest and juice of 15 lemons and then top up the 25L bucket with cold water.
Add 800g of flower heads (blackfly and all) and the packet of yeast.
Place a dinner plate on top — the right way up — to prevent a build-up of gas.
Leave for 5-8 days; the time to bottle it up is when the fizz begins starts to go.
Sieve the mixture, to remove the flowers — a sprout net does the job for Ed in the Vale of Evesham.
Bottle in sterilised, clean bottles. A hot tunnel heats up sufficiently, on summer days, to sterilise the clean bottles and then Milton tablets, also sold by wine shops, finish off the process.
Refrigerate before serving, because it alters the way the bubbles fit in between the molecules of water. If the temperatures are too high, the cork will hit the ceiling!
Sending wine to space, and bringing it back down to earth to sell for a good cause seems like a Herculean effort. But the true admiration must be for the astronauts who managed to resist the temptation to pop it open for some 14 months.
A bottle of the world’s first space-aged wine is currently available through Christie’s Private Sales. After 14 months aboard the International Space Station as part of an experiment undertaken by Space Cargo, the case of Bordeaux Pétrus 2000 travelled aboard a Dragon spacecraft back to Earth in January.
One bottle is now presented in a trunk handcrafted by Parisian Maison d’Arts Les Ateliers Victor, alongside a decanter, glasses and a corkscrew made from a meteorite. The price is $1 million (£719,686), which also includes a bottle of ‘terrestrial’ Pétrus 2000.
The presentation cabinet is spectacularly grand.
The million dollar question — quite literally — is, of course, whether the wine tastes any different for having travelled over 200 million miles in orbit around the earth?
Apparently so, is the answer. The contrast is ‘remarkable’, says the panel of wine experts and scientists who tasted the wines earlier this year, noting differences in colour, aroma and flavour.
This wine is ‘literally, out of this world,’ adds Nicolas Gaume, co-founder and CEO of Space Cargo. ‘The proceeds of the sale will allow us to continue Mission WISE, six experiments in space to help invent the agriculture and food we need for tomorrow on Earth. It is our conviction that there is no Planet B and we intend to pave the way for our future.’
The research programme examines the way plants adapt to the stress of space conditions. Presumably the issue of astronauts’ stress due to long-term residency on is no longer such an issue, now that those on board the ISS have such a lovely stock of wine to tap into should things get too rough.
Father's Day is coming up on June 20, and a little treat will always be a winner. Of course, a big treat is even better... Toby Keel and Martin Fone pick out some of their favourite Father's Day food gifts.
If you’re looking for something longer lasting than a full stomach and a hangover, don’t miss our ‘Best Father’s Day gifts‘ guide full of gadgets, jumpers and all sorts of other interesting bits.
Fortnums make a glorious Father’s Day hamper that’s £25 more, but don’t necessarily plunge straight for that one. It contains cheese and cured meat — they’re always welcome, but the sort of thing that you might end up with in the shopping anyway. This True Gentleman’s hamper has some really unusual and special bits, including hickory smoked nuts and dark macadamia biscuits. £125 from Fortnum & Mason
From an F&M hamper to something a little more earthy, the ‘pub in a box’ from Signature Brew will elicit smiles just as broad for a father who’s been bowled over by the recent craft beer trend — and who’s the type to relive his youth. The box contains eight beautifully packaged cans of beer — two each of the award-winning brewery’s Roadie, Backstage IPA, Studio Lager and (best of all) the Nightliner porter — plus a glass, crisps, nuts, pub quiz questions. There’s even a QR code to access the ‘jukebox’ — a Spotify playlist designed to complement each different beer. £30 from Signature Brew
In quite the most brilliant piece of packaging we’ve seen in some years, this is a gin lover’s delight wrapped in a wonderful piece of 1950s-style Americana: a vintage ‘fridge’ containing eight different flavoured gins from the hugely experimental distillers at That Boutiquey Gin Company.
Flavours include strawberry and balsamic vinegar, smoked rosemary and spit-roasted pineapple, all at 46% ABV (caution needed when mixing, in other words). But by far the quirkiest in the collection is a gin that’s both literally and metaphorically out of this world. Moonshot Gin’s claim to fame is that all of its botanicals have been sent into the stratosphere at an altitude of at least 20 kilometres. Random, if not eccentric, as this criterion for botanical selection may seem, they are classic ingredients for a London Dry Gin, although including a piece of rock from a lunar meteorite is a bit out there. It was a well-balanced spirit, with a curiously sherbet texture. £39.95 from Master of Malt
It’s a truth universally acknowledged — at least by dads — that no meal is complete without at least a couple of condiments on the side. This selection of goodies from Tracklements is a joy: two great mustards, fine pickle and piccalilli… and best of all, the very best chilli jam we’ve ever had from a jar.
Marks and Sparks have hit Father’s Day pretty hard this year, with a special edition Colin the Caterpillar, some sort of ludicrously huge chocolate bar they’ve called ‘The Big Daddy’, and ‘Beer Whips’, which seem to be Walnut Whips, without the walnut but with added beer.
Best of all, though, are their hampers, all available to order online for delivery. The £100 ‘Daddy of All Hampers’ is at the top of the tree, with cured meat, cheese, parfait and pork pie, along with a vey nice Côtes du Rhône and Southwold blonde beer to wash them down. What makes it feel really special, though, is the wooden crate it comes in: an absolutely splendid touch. The smaller ‘Cheers Dad’ collection also comes in a wooden box, and while the contents aren’t quite as eye-popping it’s also half the price. I mean, obviously your dad is well worth the extra £50, right? …… Right? £30-100 from Marks and Spencer
Salted Caramel Brownies, classic Triple Chocolate Brownies, dark chocolate Peanut Crunch Brownies, sweet and tart Raspberry Blondies, marshmallowy Rocky Road Brownies and the indulgent Cookies & Cream Brownies. We’re really not sure what to add, except please excuse that drooling noise you may be hearing. £17 from Charming Bakery
Alcohol delivery services thrived under lockdown, and in our experience Beer Hawk was up with the best of them — and they’ve put together a terrific real ale selection. Pick of the bunch is Old Engine Oil, a potent stout over 6.0% ABV, but there’s also a Benedictine-style ale, a delicious Market Porter and traditional ales from Cornwall, Yorkshire and more. It even comes with a glass, and in a box plastered with dad jokes. (Yes, it is your duty to pretend not to have heard them before.)
If a one-off box doesn’t sound quite right, the same company now run their own beer-by-post club called Beer Bods: every couple of months you get sent a box of eight beers from unusual breweries around the world. Clearly there’s nothing to stop you drinking them all at once, but subscribers are urged instead to join the weekly online tasting session, each Thursday night at 9pm, where they can crack open their beers and discuss them with other like-minded connoisseurs.
If your father is the type to seek a perfect post-prandial whisky liqueur — and one in an irresistible retro bottle — then Shanky’s Whip from Biggar and Leith may well become an odds-on favourite. From its vintage matchbox inspired artwork, featuring an Irish jockey, Shanky, completing the race in an ostrich-drawn cart, whip in hand, to its exquisite mix of Irish spirts and pot still whiskey, blended with vanilla and infused with caramel, it stands out from the field.
Black in colour, impressively smooth when served on the rocks, a heady mélange of vanilla and caramel in the mouth, creamy in texture, and without the afterburn you associate with a traditional Irish whiskey, it quickly made its way into my winner’s enclosure. And that’s even without having tried the suggested cocktail: one part Shanky’s, four parts Coca-Cola, and a slice of lime. £23.95 from Master of Malt
The original Jaffa Cake gin caused a sensation when it first arrived a year or two ago — at least, it did in the Country Life offices. Since then the distillers, Zesty Spirits, have gone on to make vodka and rum equivalents, all of which are just as much fun as you’d expect — and all ideal for summery cocktails. £14.99 from Master of Malt
Theres nothing wrong at all with a standard London dry gin and tonic in summer — in fact, there's an awful lot right with it. Sometimes, though, you hanker after something more exotic, and Martin Fone and Toby Keel are here to take a look at some of the more intriguing prospects for sale today.
In the past couple of weeks, with the first seasonal strawberries on the shelves, we started buying regular punnets — and this year’s crop has been sensational so far. The children seem happy to say no to all other forms of sugar — chocolate, sweets — if they’re just able to get another few strawberries added to morning porridge / packed lunch boxes / evening desserts. It’s a joy each year to remember just how good fresh strawberries are. With Two Birds gin, you can drink them as well as eat them — sort of, anyway.
This strawberry and vanilla gin is unashamedly on the far end of the fruity and sweet spectrum. It’ll make the eyes water of anyone who prefers a classic London dry, but think of it less than a gin and more as a quick-mix cocktail and you’ll likely see the appeal.
Even better, though, is the same company’s Pink Grapefruit and Pomegranate gin, with a superbly sweet-sour mix that induces the same sort of pleasurable wince as those rhubarb-and-custard sweets you had when you were a kid.
A gin named after the traditional Welsh tea loaf? What’s not to love about this magnificent concoction from the Snowdonia Spirit Company, whose flavours also include Love Spoon Wild Fruit Gin — which makes you wonder how long it’ll be before leek and daffodil flavours emerge from the same source.
This is no gimmick, though — well, not just a gimmick, for the familiar Barra Brith scent is easily discernible on the nose in this gin, with black tea, dried fruit and spices clearly coming through. Lovely — and all the lovelier if served with a slice of orange to help bring out the cake flavours. £34.99 from Master of Malt
Following the Barra Brith gin above, we have more Welsh gin, this time from the Eccentric Spirit Company, whose wares are all distilled at the In The Welsh Wind Distillery near Cardigan. And they don’t use the word ‘eccentric’ lightly: here, we have a cask-aged Limbeck gin (heavily flavoured with blue ginger, citrus and tarragon, Seville orange and orris), a classic dry gin dubbed Dewi Sant, with aniseed notes that make it almost impossible not to think of Liquorice Allsorts; a Pembrokeshire Pinky with a touch of cherry and lemongrass; and Madam Geneva Dry Gin, a straight-down-the-middle London Dry Gin.
The pick of the bunch? For our money it’s the Limbeck Cask Aged, full of interesting notes. The makers suggest trying it in a cocktail with 50ml with 20ml of Grand Marnier, 20ml of lemon juice, 12.5ml of ginger syrup and a couple of dashes of orange bitters. £31.95-£37.95 from Master of Malt
We’d never heard of CBA Gin before coming across these two strikingly good-looking bottles came to our attention. But we had, of course, heard of Silent Pool, who are the distillers who’ve brewed these two gins with former bar owners Peter Barney and Chris Stewart, who moved in to gin during the pandemic. The flavours themselves are pandemic-inspired as well, the message being that if you can’t get away, at least you can transport yourself there with a decent drink.
And decent drinks they are. The California Gin — rather oddly, made with Valencia oranges — has a real punch to it, almost bringing a Cointreau vibe to a G&T that we found really wonderful. The Marrakech variety is lemony and spicy (mint, coriander and turmeric are among the botanicals), and also worth a look, £38 (California Gin) and £37 (Marrakech Gin) from cba-gin.com
From California and Marrakech to Ireland, now, with a gin made in the Emerald Isle and named after Grace O’Malley, referred to on the bottle as the ‘Irish Pirate Queen’ — though that’s quite the simplification of the extraordinary life and times of Grace (often known as Gráinne) O’Malley, one of the most powerful women in 16th century Europe.
A strong leader of the area that’s now Co Mayo, O’Malley was both a powerful local leader and a skilled negotiator, quite happy to face down Elizabeth I when they met in person in Greenwich in 1593 — an interview said to have been conducted in Latin, since neither spoke the other’s mother tongue. Appropriately, then, this gin (flavoured with heather as well as thyme, red clover, blackthorn, bilberry, and rock samphire) is powerful, subtle and elegant — and will no doubt lead to some fascinating stories to tell as well. £29.95 from Master of Malt
Atom Brands do not beat about the juniper bush, writes Martin Fone. ‘We make and select liquids that are the best they can possibly be, and package them in a way that is awesome’ is their bold claim. The Tonbridge-based company, whose stable includes the rather clunkily named That Boutique-y Gin Company brand, have certainly set about adding some pizzazz into the gin drinker’s world, if their Retro Gin Fridge Tin is anything to go by.
The presentational pack is eye-catching, consisting of a turquoise-coloured tin, shaped like a retro fridge that you may remember from half a century ago, nestling inside of which are eight 50ml miniature bottles, each containing a different gin from the company’s range, all with an ABV of 46%. It makes for an attractive gift for the gin lover in your life as well as offering a fun way to explore a range of unusual gins.
The quirkiest in the collection is literally and metaphorically out of this world. Moonshot Gin’s claim to fame is that all of its botanicals have been sent into the stratosphere at an altitude of at least 20 kilometres. Random, if not eccentric, as this criterion for botanical selection may seem, they are classic ingredients for a London Dry Gin, although including a piece of rock from a lunar meteorite is a bit out there. It was a well-balanced spirit, with a curiously sherbet texture.
The other seven showcase an individual botanical, but even the standards are given an unusual twist. It was a bold move to combine strawberry with Aceto di Balsamico tradizionale di Modena DOP, a vinegar made from cooked Trebbiano grapes and aged in wooden casks, to make a deep, tawny red Strawberry and Balsamico Gin.
Rhubarb Triangle Gin pays homage to West Yorkshire’s famous early forced rhubarb growing area with a spirit that is like my favourite pudding, rhubarb crumble, in a glass, adroitly mixing the tartness of the rhubarb with the sweetness of the citrus elements. If the smell of a well-seasoned Christmas cake is more to your taste, their Cherry Gin, a dark red fruit gin using sweet and sour Mascara cherries distilled in the finest sloe gin tradition, is a must.
A twist on the familiar tastes of rosemary and pineapple, the latter all the rage as a gin in the 1920s, is to set them on fire to bring out a smokier flavour. Smoked Rosemary Gin is quite a floral, herbaceous gin while Spit-roasted Pineapple Gin, the fruit caramelised with demerara sugar, is a riot of syrupy sweetness. The Pineapple Gin is prone to produce a sediment, a natural result of the interaction between the fruit and the spirit. Simply give the bottle a good shake and it disperses.
Yuzu, a citrus fruit from East Asia, has a knobbly, uneven skin and is tart and fragrant with a taste not unlike a blend of grapefruit and mandarin orange. It is a botanical favoured by distillers of Japanese style gins, usually to be found in the background, adding texture. In Yuzu Gin, though, it takes centre stage, and its intense citric flavours interact well with the spicier, peppery juniper to produce a well-balanced, moreish London Dry style gin.
“What makes it so special are the pastel-coloured, pearl-like citrus bubbles inside its tube-shaped fruit, which pop like caviar”
A botanical I had not encountered before in my gin-drinking odyssey is Citrus australasica or finger lime. Its fortunes have transformed from being gourmet bush tucker, hailing from the rain forests bordering Queensland and New South Wales, to become one of the trendiest of culinary flavours. What makes it so special are the pastel-coloured, pearl-like citrus bubbles inside its tube-shaped fruit, which pop like caviar.
Finger Lime Gin is a celebration of this fruit in spirit form and the result is wonderfully refreshing drink, ideal for a warm summer’s evening and my personal favourite.
The Retro Gin Fridge tin has allowed me to make new discoveries and to challenge preconceptions. Inevitably, some were not to my taste, but that is the joy of a taster pack, a voyage of discovery which takes you out of your comfort zone. This impressively quirky offering from That Boutique-y Gin Company did just that.
French distiller Audemus are based in the heart of Cognac country, yet have turned their hands to distilling some flavoured gins — with rather unusual results, as they’ve gone full-on savoury rather than the usual sweet/fruity path. Kudos to them for trying something different.
Most eye-catching are these two, their pink pepper and umami gins. The former is the one that first made their name in Britain, and is flavoured with — as you might have guessed — pink peppercorns, but also honey, vanilla and cardamom. All of them combine well to make a genuinely unusual and interesting drink, though its one that is really at its best as part of a cocktail. If you’re serving it in a simple G&T the makers recommend mixing it with Fever Tree’s aromatic tonic water — and it really did make a quite outstanding combination, though perhaps not for everyone. One of our testers loved it; the other couldn’t even finish the glass. (The former happily did the honours, naturally.)
Audemus’s newer effort is the Umami gin, which is made — and we swear we’re mot making this up — with Parmesan cheese and capers. It’s a bold and unusual combo, for sure, and if you see it being served in a gin bar then we’d heartily recommend having a taste. It’s definitely best to have that taste before taking the plunge and buying a full bottle. Over at Master of Malt they coyly describe it as ‘quite niche’, which is a marvellously polite way of putting it.
‘Please can you send me the link? Will buy INSTANTLY’ was the immediate reaction from one of the Country Life staff on being told of the existence of this gin. Since those days, it’s become a real best-selling favourite: there are vodka and rum equivalents, but for our money the gin version is still the best.
Shockingly, not everybody gets quite as excited as we do. Those people are wrong. How could you possibly not love a gin distilled with oranges, fresh orange peel, cocoa powder and real-life Jaffa Cakes?
‘Hand-made in Herefordshire’ reads the label on the bottle of this delicate, floral gin which has a strong whack of gin’s traditional juniper notes — not something that you can say of all the gins on this page. Elderflower is a lovely taste that seems perfect for the season as we head into Spring, and the fact that this comes in a pretty and hugely tasteful bottle is an extra bonus.
‘We wanted to create something to celebrate the English spring,’ says the eponymous Tarquin, aka Tarquin Leadbetter, who runs this small distillery near Padstow. It’s a beautifully elegant gin with a lovely balance of floral and fruity notes — and for something a bit different, it makes a fun fruity cocktail. 50ml of the gin with 25ml of lemon juice and a teaspoon of strawberry jam, shaken with ice, strained into a jam jar and topped with a splash of pink bubbly. Okay, perhaps this recipe is a bit more hen party than mother’s day, but it’s certainly different.
Put all your eggs in one basket with this classic wicker picnic hamper. It comes fully stocked with crockery and glassware for four people, plus napkins, a corkscrew and a waterproof bag to store dirty plates. £124 from www.selfridges.com
Ensure you stay warm and cosy when those afternoon picnics inevitably turn into evening drinks, with this luxurious Herringbone blanket from Chilcott. Each blanket is made using 100% Romney lambswool and spun and dyed exclusively in the Yorkshire Dales. £165 from www.chilcottuk.com
We’ve all been there — we pat the grass, convinced its dry, only to stand up with creaky knees an hour or so later to find a very damp rear. With this portable folding camping chair from Outerior, you will never have to sit on a crumpled reusable shopping bag, or the corner of someone else’s jacket ever again. £79.99 from www.theouterior.com
Luke warm beer is for amateurs, and you are so much better than that. This cool bag from Slingsby —whose rhubarb and marmalade gins are great favourites of our — comes with six ready-mixed concoctions. The aforementioned flavours are present and correct, but there’s also a delicious Damson & Blackberry gin spritz that is really wonderful. £25 from www.spiritofharrogate.co.uk
If you’re looking for something similar but with a little more chic credentials, then London cocktail bar La Coupette have just started canning and selling their signature Apple cocktail in a can. They’re pricey — it’s a penny under five pounds for each tin — but the drink is a wonderful, refreshing tipple that will really add something special to a picnic. Just take it easy in the sunshine, however: they’ll slip down far more easily than their 8% abv suggests. £4.99 per can at coupette-market.com
Research shows that 7.7 billion water bottles are used a year in the UK, with each person contributing 150 on average. Make a difference by bringing a refillable water bottle to your next picnic, and help do your bit for the environment, one sip at a time. This matte black option from Contigo is described as ‘100% leak proof’ (which you’d pretty much hope would be the starting point for any liquid container) as well as keeping your drink chilled for 24 hours. £25.17 from www.amazon.com
If you like the idea of a picnic, but don’t like the idea of A. making one, or B. queueing in a supermarket with their latest meal-deal in hand, then this is for you. Colette, a gourmet Deli in Chelsea, offers a wide range of ready made hampers. Their afternoon tea hamper for two is extra delicious, with Crayfish on Brioche, Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese on Sourdough, plus a selection of tasty treats, including Vanilla Flan and Lemon Drizzle cake. £125 from www.colette.co.uk
Rainbow Stripe Luxury Picnic Rug
A beautifully bright herringbone rug with a durable waterproof backing canvas, that is sure to brighten up even the most dreary of days. £100 from www.thebritishblanketcompany.com
Okay, so you wouldn’t take this with you to the park — but it’s portable enough to take away for the weekend, say. And it’ll help you say goodbye to sad-looking ham sandwiches and a packet of crisps — the Ooni Fyra pizza oven is guaranteed to elevate any picnic experience. Get it up to temperature — i.e. 400˚ celsius and above — and the magic of cooking a wood-fired pizza in 60 seconds or so can happen, a process which is unfailingly delicious. The contemporary design is fuelled by wood pellets, and at 11kg with detachable legs and chimney, it is easily transportable. Well, maybe not ‘easily’, but it’s certainly doable. £249 from www.johnlewis.com
A fair weather umbrella comes in the shape of this tasselled navy striped number. With its twisted cork-screw bottom, it stands tall in both sand and grass, perfect for long lazy days at the beach or sunny days in the park. £169 from www.amara.com
Cider will be forever associated with the Cotswolds thanks to Rosie. Jane Wheatley meets the makers keeping the tradition alive.
According to the enchanting 2020 book Orchard: A Year in England’s Eden, apples originated in the Tian Shan mountains of Kazakhstan. Their seeds were disseminated by hungry brown bears and, later, by horses travelling the Silk Road into Europe, where they cross-pollinated with the native crab apple. Eventually, the Normans brought the seeds to Britain.
By the 1880s, a necklace of orchards was strung across the Cotswolds from Sharpness to Evesham, producing apples with distinctively local names: Arlingham Schoolboys, Longney Russet and Hagloe Crab. Farm labourers were each supplied with a gallon of cider as they arrived in the morning — the best workers went where the best cider was. In the 1950s, orchards covered 15,000 acres of Gloucestershire.
This has now reduced to 3,000 acres, but there are signs of a revival: Gloucestershire Orchard Trust and Day’s Cottage cidery have created a seven-acre museum orchard to preserve the county’s 180 known varieties, farmers and landowners are replanting trees and there are new entrants to cider making.
Bushel+Peck: In search of the disregarded apple
An apple tree is a lovely thing to have in a garden: the pink and white blossom so pretty in spring, then the fruit, rosy red, russet or sharp green in the late-summer sunshine. Yet there are only so many apple crumbles or jars of chutney one can make and, by autumn, the fallers are on the ground, decaying quietly, which can be a bit sad and guilt-making.
Enter David Lindgren, knight errant in search of the disregarded apple. Each year, he collects the fruit from gardens and domestic orchards in the villages around his Northleach home and makes cider with it. A fugitive from the corporate world — he was a marketing executive for a soft-drink company — Mr Lindgren started his enterprise, Bushel+Peck, in the spring of 2015. ‘I followed the blossom, then put a little card through the letterbox of each house,’ he remembers. ‘Six or seven out of every 10 people responded. Nothing I ever did in my marketing career was as successful as posting cards through letterboxes.’ Six years on, he is sourcing fruit from about 80 different gardens. ‘The owners get free juice and cider — if they pick and deliver the fruit themselves, then they get more,’ he reveals.
Mr Lindgren blends both cider apples and sweet and produces a small range of single-variety ciders, including one he calls The Colonel. ‘It’s made from Ashmead’s Kernel, Gloucestershire’s best apple,’ he says. ‘It is a russet, but the side that faces the sun turns glorious shades of red and gold. I use Cham- pagne bottles for natural carbonation — the last bit of fermentation happens in the bottle and, when you open the top, it fizzes a little.’
Has the change from boardroom to cider barn been as much fun as he hoped? He gives a wry smile: ‘Yes, although not so much profit! But I get to see beautiful gardens and meet some lovely people. I do orchard planting for farmers and landowners, which is lucrative, and as a volunteer for the Gloucestershire Orchard Trust. Knowing that I’m making a small contribution to apple growing in the county pleases me a lot.’ Bushel+Peck — www.bushelpeck.co.uk
David Lindgren in his Hazleton cider mill in Gloucestershire. Photo: Mark Williamson
Day’s Cottage : A virtuous circle
At Day’s Cottage, cider-makers David Kaspar and Helen Brent-Smith operate what you might call a virtuous circle of apple husbandry. Just over half a mile of hedging around the 20-acre property gives shelter to the birds that feed on orchard predators, such as codling moth (no pesticides needed here); dead trees are left as habitat for fauna — jackdaws are raising a family in a fallen log; and the orchards are home to little owls, nightingales, woodpeckers and several species of bat. Pear and plum trees, hawthorn, wild honeysuckle and clumps of thistle and bramble ensure a long succession of blossom to feed pollinators.
Fruit is handpicked from ladders, graded and fed through a rack and cloth press. The pomace left after processing is sent to a neighbouring farmer to feed his Gloucester cattle and Old Spot pigs.
The produce is sold at a weekly market in Stroud, a 12-minute drive away. Does it make a living for them? ‘Yes!’ exclaims Mrs Brent-Smith. ‘We are still pinching ourselves.’ As well as cider-making, they grow and sell young trees and run classes in orchard management.
The pair moved here to Mrs Brent-Smith’s family farm from London 30 years ago, building on the legacy of her great-aunt Lucy, who planted the original trees in 1912. ‘We learnt from the old boys and we’re still learning, it takes a lifetime,’ she admits. ‘The wild yeast on the apples makes strong cider (7.5%) and the blends are different each year, depending on how much sun the fruit has had and what apples ripen at the same time. It’s more of an art than a science.’
Day’s Cottage is only a few miles from Slad, home of Cider with Rosie author Laurie Lee, and Mr Kaspar tells me they produced a cider to mark the 2014 centenary of his birth. ‘We made 100 gallons with 100 varieties, including apples from his original orchard, and called it Rosie’s Kiss.’ Day’s Cottage, Brookthorpe, Gloucestershire — www.dayscottage.co.uk
Pressing the apples at David Lindgren’s Bushel + Peck cidery in Hazleton, Gloucestershire.
Dunkertons Organic : Blending is a serious business
Swing off the A40 east out of Cheltenham into the expanse of Dunkerton’s Cider Barn and you are in sybaritic foodie territory. A coffee cart at the entrance dispenses a good flat white; on a sunny Sunday morning, young families sit at trestle tables eating brunch as Taylor Swift croons from high-end speakers. There is a DJ station, a dance floor and a long bar; next door, the shop is stacked high with displays of bottles, each with its distinctive livery; there are top-class farmhouse cheeses — cider and cheese pairings are a feature — and baguettes from a local baker that taste of France.
Behind all this is the business end of cider-making: a lofty hangar housing a phalanx of tall steel vats, each containing the juice of one kind of apple. Some will be blended after fermentation, a few will stand alone as a single-variety cider. A million litres are bottled each year.
The cidery was founded 40 years ago by Ivor and Susie Dunkerton in a cluster of wooden barns at their Herefordshire home. When the couple took a back step a few years ago, the business was taken over by their son Julian, founder of the clothing company Superdry, who moved the cider processing to the Cheltenham site. The apples are still sourced from the same Soil Association-accredited organic orchards and, importantly, the man who worked with Mr Dunkerton Snr for more than 30 years is still key to its success.
Robert West regularly makes the trip to Cheltenham in the autumn to taste each variety of cider apple as it comes off the crate. ‘Ivor used to say “It’s all in the apple”,’ recalls Mr West. ‘I taste the apple, then the juice that comes off it, then at the different stages of fermentation.’ Blending is a serious business, done with two others. ‘Every blend is a different combination depending on the taste coming from each vat,’ he explains. ‘It’s about proportions: last week, we tasted about 20 glasses to arrive at a base blend for Black Fox, a medium dry, and for Premium, a medium sweet.’
Does he have a favourite apple? ‘Ah,’ Mr West sighs. ‘Well, Foxwhelp is absolutely one of the crucial ones; when you unpack a box of it, you get a wonderful waft of apple all the way through to the aroma of fermented cider. It’s so sharp, you can’t drink it by itself, but 5% of Foxwhelp will change any cider.’
I tell him that, when I visited the cider barn, I fell for a single variety called Breakwells Seedling. He beams: ‘That is my favourite.’ Dunkertons Organic Cider, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire — www.dunkertonscider.co.uk
Carputin apples, a traditional variety for producing cider.
Hartlands Cider: No shaking or machinery
At the very opposite end of the scale to Dunkertons is the tiny, no-frills Hartlands Cider at Tirley. Following the hand-painted sign at a crossroads, I find Dereck Hartland in the farmyard, soaking a barrel in water. ‘It got dry in that heatwave,’ he explains. He ushers me into a small shed furnished with a bench, a counter and two barrels sitting on pins. ‘The sales department,’ he announces with a chuckle.
With his brother David, Mr Hartland makes cider from their orchard in the village: ‘We’ve got Dabinett — that’s the best apple — Yarlington Mill, Michelin and Bulmer’s Norman. We pick what’s on the floor, no shaking or machinery, we don’t rush things.’
Does he blend his ciders? ‘We do sweet and dry; medium is a mix of the two. I’m not the most scientific person in the world.’ His shoulders shake with laughter.
Customers come here with containers and fill up straight from the barrel. ‘It makes a bit of money and you meet some nice people,’ nods Mr Hartland. ‘We sit here and put the world to rights.’ Hartlands Cider, Tirley, Gloucestershire — www.facebook.com/ciderandperry
Ivor and Susie Dunkerton. Credit: Adrian Brooks / Imagewise
Minchew’s Real Cyder: A legendary brewer
According to several people, no story about cider-making in the Cotswolds would be complete without mentioning Kevin Minchew. The legendary brewer of cider and perry won pretty much every big award going throughout the 1990s. Then, he seemed to disappear, mourned by serious cider drinkers everywhere. It turns out he’d moved away and returned to work as an engineer.
‘I’m not fussed’, he says laconically, when I track him down by phone. ‘I’d won so many prizes.’ He did, however, go on making a bit to share with friends and, as he says, ‘to keep the cultural heritage alive’.
The good news is that Mr Minchew is back making ‘small volumes’ with his brother at the original family cidery. Minchew’s Real Cyder and Perry, Madresfield, Worcestershire — www.minchews.co.uk
Swap your lukewarm party pitcher for one of these Continental aperitifs, says Emma Hughes.
Camparino in Galleria, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Milan, Lombardy, Italy
Whisper it: not everyone loves Pimm’s. Everything that goes hand-in-hand with it, absolutely, but the drink itself?
Some of us tolerate this sugary suspension of fruit salad in the same way we do soggy sandwiches and picnic chairs that trap your fingers: it’s simply one of the prices of admission for English socialising. But, given the choice, we probably wouldn’t choose to kick things off with a cup of portable wasp-magnet.
The good news is that—whether you dislike Pimm’s, or you enjoy it, but would sometimes like to try something different—you do have a choice. A huge one, in fact: cast your gaze towards Europe and a whole new world of party-starters opens up.
Aperitivi or apéritifs, depending on whether you’re in Italy or France—from the Latin aperire, meaning to open—are designed to prepare the palate, as well as to set the mood. Aperol, the vibrant orange blend of gentian and rhubarb that launched 1,000 spritzers, needs no introduction. Here are five slightly less well known, but no less delicious, alternatives.
1 Campari
A ruby-red Italian icon, Campari was invented in 1860 by Gaspare Campari. The exact recipe remains a closely guarded secret, but the blend of numerous herbs, spices, barks and peels contains woody cascarilla and is thought to include the citrus chinotto.
It’s delicious served simply with soda and is sometimes sold ready mixed in dinky, red, picnic-friendly glass bottles; look out for it in Italian delis.
Drink it at home… In a Negroni (with Tanqueray and Martini Rosso) at Quo Vadis in Soho, which has one of London’s best-appointed cocktail menus, including a strong selection of Campari-based ones, if you’d like to start your evening with something less punchy (quovadissoho.co.uk).
…and abroad The prices might be eye-watering, but, if you’re in Milan, you should definitely set aside time for a drink at Camparino in Galleria. Opened by the son of Campari’s inventor in 1915, it’s an olive’s throw from the Duomo and boasts grandly ornate wooden interiors in the downstairs Bar di Passo (www.camparino.com)
2 Dubonnet
No list of pre-dinner drinks would be complete without Dubonnet, a blend of fortified wine, herbs and spices that includes a touch of quinine. Invented in Paris in 1846 by the French chemist Sir Joseph Dubonnet to mask the taste of the anti-malarials taken by French soldiers in North Africa, it was originally made on the site of the Palais Garnier in the 9th arrondissement.
On this side of the Channel, it’s long been a favourite in royal circles. Both The Queen and the late Queen Mother have been described as enjoying it—and, last year, it finally attained a Royal Warrant.
Drink it at home… With two parts Dubonnet to one part gin, over ice with a slice of lemon, as per the reported royal preference. To commemorate The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, Cornish spirits maker Mainbrace has launched a Cornish Dry Gin with lemon verbena harvested from St Michael’s Mount – and it would fit the bill perfectly (£34.99; www.mainbracerum.com)
…and abroad Parisians still remember the famous ‘Dubo, Dubon, Dubonnet’ posters that were once ubiquitous all over the city and the Métro. The Ritz Paris’s Bar Hemingway is the place to drink it (www.ritzparis.com)
3 Lillet Blanc
This citrussy, quintessentially French aperitif—a blend of white wine and liqueurs, distinguished from vermouth by the absence of wormwood—has a bottle straight out of a Toulouse-Lautrec painting, but a global ingredients list, with Spanish and Moroccan sweet oranges and bitter green orange peel from Haiti all featuring.
Lillet was the late-19th-century brainchild of two brothers, the Lillets, who worked as wine and spirit merchants in Bordeaux. Today, there are several Lillets: Blanc is sweeter and contains less quinine than the others.
Drink it at home… The Vesper Martini, James Bond’s drink of choice, is described in Casino Royale (1953) as containing ‘three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka [and] half a measure of Kina Lillet [Lillet Blanc’s predecessor, which was heavier on quinine and sugar than the modern version]’. Order one at the legendary Dukes Bar in Mayfair (www.dukeshotel.com)
…and abroad In Bordeaux, of course, at La Brasserie Bordelaise, which has all the Gallic charm you could wish for, plus an extremely well-stocked vaulted cellar (www.brasserie-bordelaise.fr)
4 Vermouth
When they’re drunk neat, we tend to associate fortified wines with after-dinner digestifs. But although it’s an essential component of everything from martinis to Manhattans, vermouth also makes a wonderful sharpener without adornment, which is how it’s often drunk in Portugal, Spain, Italy and France. Enjoy it with ice and a slice of orange or the old-fashioned way with some sparkling water on the side.
Drink it at home… Andrew Edmunds, a mainstay of bohemian Soho since 1986, serves an English spiced vermouth over ice as you peruse the menu (www.andrewedmunds.com).
…and abroad Vermouth bars are big news in Barcelona. Locals’ favourite La Vermuteria del Tano has been around for what feels like forever; it still has barrels on the walls and its original marble counters. Pair your vermouth with crisps and conservas: top-notch tinned fish.
5 Select
Think spritzes are all about Aperol? Think again. Select, which was created in Venice in 1920 by Fratelli Pilla & C, lends itself to mixing with none of the sweetness of its more famous Day-Glo cousin.
Don’t be fooled by its raspberry-pink hue: this is a herbaceous, near-savoury tipple with notes of juniper berries that give it a unique, almost resinous character.
Drink it at home… In a Venetian Spritz with Prosecco, soda and olive at Celentano’s in Glasgow, a buzzy modern Italian in Cathedral House (celentanosglasgow.com).
…and abroad Where else but Venice? Osteria Acquastanca on Murano makes a fine spot for a seafood lunch kicked off with Select Spritzes (acquastanca.it).
The Hudson is a cocktail created by the team at Claridge's to commemorate Country Life's 125th anniversary. Here's how it's made.
On Wednesday May 11, the great and the good of Country Life’s past and present gathered at Claridge’s, London W1, to celebrate the magazine’s 125th anniversary.
To mark the occasion, the bartender of the hotel’s Painter’s Room bar, Maddalena Sommo, created a bespoke cocktail called The Hudson. Named in memory of Country Life’s founder Edward Hudson, it’s a cocktail with gin and Italicus, an Italian liqueur containing bergamot peel, Cedro lemons, chamomile and lavender. It’s refreshing, aromatic and not too sweet.
The version served at the party will use Bullards London Dry Gin, a former brewery turned distillery in Norwich, Norfolk, that is still run by direct descendants of the founder.
If you’d like to try it at home, you’ll need a cocktail shaker, strainer and an Old Fashioned-style glass. Here it is being mixed by Paolo Perrini, one of the wonderful mixologists at Claridge’s (you can see it here on our Instagram page if you don’t see the embedded video below.)
Frustrated by wasted honey in her frames, a beekeeper tried soaking them in whisky. The results are award-winning, discovers Vicky Liddell, as she samples Beeble’s spirits.
Nicola Reed: artist, beekeeper, and now distiller of liqueur.
Over the past few years, an amber-coloured drink has been flying off the shelves of smart farm shops and delicatessens. Its name is Beeble and it is a unique blend of three-year-old Scotch whisky and ethically produced Wiltshire honey that has produced a completely new category of spirit. Founded by Nicola Reed, artist and beekeeper, the Beeble range, which now includes a honey vodka and a honey rum, has already collected two Great Taste awards and there are plans for a honey mezcal with tequila later this year.
The Beeble story began nine years ago, when Mrs Reed took over a beehive that had originally been given to her husband for his 50th birthday. ‘James is a serious equestrian and didn’t think bees and horses go well together, so we came to an agreement and I went on a beekeeping course,’ she says.
From her first colony, Mrs Reed was able to give several jars to friends, but was frustrated by the waste honey that remained stuck to the frames and decided to soak them in whisky. When she returned a few days later, she discovered that a lucky alchemy had taken place. ‘The honey had infused into the whisky, making a delicious elixir,’ she recalls. ‘When I took it to the farmers’ market, it sold out within an hour.’
In 2017, Mrs Reed teamed up with friend and accountant Matthew Brauer and, together, the beekeeper and the book-keeper now sell more than 50,000 bottles of liqueur every year, made from the honey of some eight million Wiltshire bees.
From the early days of farmers’ markets, production has stepped up dramatically and so have the beehives, 119 of which are now managed by local beekeepers; Mrs Reed still keeps eight traditional hives in a beautiful walled fruit garden at her home on the edge of the Cotswolds. In spring, the orchard thrums with the sound of bees, which share the space with Indian runner ducks and chickens. ‘Poultry and bees make excellent bed fellows,’ explains the entrepreneur. ‘The bees don’t sting the hens and the chickens keep the area around the hives clean.’
From spring onwards, Mrs Reed opens the hives weekly to check on the health of the colonies and make sure they have enough space: ‘I can tell immediately what their mood is: the lower the buzz, the calmer the bees. When they are stressed, the noise is raised an octave. Sometimes, the colonies expand too quickly and, if we get a late frost, it can be devastating.’
Honey is harvested ethically and sustainably, leaving half for the bees, she explains. ‘It’s a precious resource — it takes one bee a whole lifetime to produce half a teaspoon of honey.’ Collection begins in June and, if the summer is good, continues in September, depending on the health of the hive. ‘Spring honey tends to be lighter in colour and taste,’ adds Mrs Reed. ‘The later you leave it, the darker it becomes.’
Three times a year, the honey is sent off in enormous tubs to a family-run distillery in Scotland, where it soaks for a couple of months before being decanted into distinctive, bee-emblazoned bottles in three different sizes, called queen, drone and worker.
Naturally sweet and with no added sugars, Beeble honey spirits can be drunk neat with ice or used as a base for cocktails. The smooth taste is quite different from that of the base spirit and the original version has proven popular with people who don’t normally drink whisky.
All the products in the range carry distinctive notes from the various flowers from which the bees have been foraging and Mr Brauer is keen to expand around the country to create honey that reflects the different flavours of regional floras. Continuing the theme of minimising waste, the company also sells a collection of cosmetics made using leftover honey and beeswax.
Mrs Reed is a self-confessed bee evangelist and wants everyone to keep them. Every year, she hosts an ‘Idle Beekeeping Day’ with beekeeper Bill Anderson for anyone interested in taking it up and the event has already hatched many new apiarists who, in a perfect circle, often end up selling honey back to her. She has even managed to convert her husband, who now has two hives outside his office in London’s Covent Garden.
The latest plan is for Mrs Reed to set up her own beekeeping school to help safeguard the local population and she is an ambassador for the charity Bees for Development, too, which helps some of the world’s poorest communities become self-sufficient through beekeeping. ‘We need bees far more than they need us, they have so much to teach us,’ she reflects. ‘I am only a custodian. When I open the hive, I learn from the bees every time — but I’m not sure they learn anything from me.’
Sobriety is easier and more interesting than it used to be, finds Giles Kime, who has spent the past year exploring the unanticipated delights of alcohol-free beer.
Giles Kime loves a tipple so much that he used to edit a wine magazine — so how did he cope without drinking?
For me, sobriety has come in many guises. When I was younger, it was usually accompanied by a promise that ‘I am never, ever going to drink again’, which tended to last for a day or two. Latterly, the rationale has tended to be ‘I probably shouldn’t drink again’, which never lasted more than a month. Until the last time, that is: so far, the commitment has endured for almost a year.
It’s interesting the reaction when you properly give up drinking. ‘What’s it like?’ people ask, with that almost imperceptible timbre in their voice that suggests that they have no real interest in the answer, as if they were asking you about a trip to Düsseldorf.
And why should they be interested? It’s hardly exciting. I suspect the question they would like to ask is ‘is it on medical advice?’, which it probably would have been if I had asked my doctor. That’s what doctors are paid to do.
The other question is ‘do you feel better?’, to which this answer is: ‘I actually felt OK before.’
I feel no smugness about not drinking because the people I really admire aren’t the abstemious, but those people with the iron will to have a half-empty bottle of wine in their kitchen and who only have a glass of wine once in a blue moon. You know, those ‘Oh yes, we might crack open half a bottle of Krug on high days and holidays and perhaps have a glass of Châteauneuf du Pape with a steak’ type of people. Their restraint allows them to drink quality rather than commodity; for every half a dozen bottles of entry-level Mâcon consumed by the habitual drinker, the occasional drinker can comfortably indulge in Puligny-Montrachet.
“I’d love to say that the reason I’ve succeeded in not drinking for a year is a combination of mind over matter and steely determination, but the answer is rather more prosaic”
As someone who used to edit a wine magazine, I have sympathy with the consuming nature of the subject. It’s not only the stuff in the glass that is so fascinating, but the places it’s made, the people who make it and the delightful ritual of gastronomy. By the time I was 30, I was lucky enough to have drunk wines that most people don’t get to drink in a lifetime; there was a Lafite 1928 generously unearthed and brought by the château’s owner Eric de Rothschild to a dinner at The Square in honour of the Christie’s of wine savant Michael Broadbent, who was born the year before in 1927.
Then there was Château Latour 1970 at the château, served during a lunch for another vinous luminary, Hugh Johnson, and Krug 1969 at The Capital Hotel laid on by the Australian wine legend Len Evans. Oh, and then there was the uncorked, but barely touched bottle of Château d’Yquem that was going begging after a tasting for readers.
A tough gig, but someone had to do it. With all this excess, there’s an argument that I had drunk enough for one lifetime.
I’d love to say that the reason I’ve succeeded in not drinking for a year is a combination of mind over matter and steely determination, but the answer is rather more prosaic. Quite simply, it’s low-alcohol and alcohol-free beer wot dunnit. In the past, in periods of abstention, I’ve drunk Diet Coke or lime and soda and have found that they are enough to turn you to drink.
It’s not only the one-dimensional character of these that makes them a poor substitute for alcohol, but the reaction they elicit; drinking lime and soda in a crowded pub is rather like wearing a baseball cap bearing the slogan ‘Temperance Society Team Leader’.
Conversely, stand there with a bottle of alcohol-free beer and it is completely different — no pitying or suspicious looks, only a sea of smiley faces with rosy cheeks and dilated pupils that you never notice when your own cheeks are rosy and your pupils dilated.
Of course, there’s no shame in not drinking in a pub, but that’s how it feels. It’s not only the fact that low-alcohol and alcohol-free beer (known in the trade as ‘low and no’) acts as subterfuge that makes it attractive — it’s also delicious. There’s something about the fermentation process that gives beer a superb three-dimensional quality.
“Once they realise that ‘low and no’ isn’t some terrible impotent impostor, most people are spurred to explore the depth and breadth of choice now on offer”
It’s easy to diss Heineken 0.0, the ubiquitous alcohol-free beer that now accounts for 20% of the market, but, for many, it’s the first step towards sobriety. Although it might lack the character of its competitors, the raison d’être of lager has never been to deliver huge amounts of flavour — simply a cold and refreshing glassful. There are so many stories about people not realising that they’re drinking Heineken 0.0 rather than regular Heineken that they can’t all be apocryphal.
Once they realise that ‘low and no’ isn’t some terrible impotent impostor, most people are spurred to explore the depth and breadth of choice now on offer in a market that has almost doubled in size over the past half decade. It was six years ago that Rob Fink and James Kindred launched Big Drop and they have since developed a growing range of award-winning beers to suit all palates, from refreshing Paradiso Citra IPA to the dark and brooding Galactic Milk Stout. In between is the Pine Trail Pale Ale that combines citrussy flavours with a satisfyingly bitter finish. BrewDog has long been in the fray, with the deliciously hoppy Nanny State. Another delicious recent arrival is Days lager and pale ale, brewed just outside Edinburgh using local barley and water sourced from the Lammermuir Hills.
Of course, when going low alcohol or alcohol free, there are plenty of other alternatives to gin and wine, but with a few exceptions — notably sparkling rosé such as the deliciously aromatic Wild Idol — few of these have the same allure as the new generation of ‘no and low’ beer.
Three of Giles’s favourite low-and-no alcohol beers
Big Drop Pine Trail Pale Ale
£24 for 12; www.bigdropbrew.com — ‘Delicious citrus flavour with a bitter finish’
BrewDog Nanny State
£4.50 for four, from all good supermarkets Sainsbury’s — ‘The perfect drop for lovers of the hop’
Days Lager
£25 for 12; www.daysbrewing.com — ‘Delicious refreshing lager from Scotland’
Is your decanter gathering dust at the back of a cupboard? If so, says Harry Eyres, it’s high time you started using it to breathe more life into your wine.
Britain’s most established wine magazine is named Decanter. I expect many of us possess one or more of the bulbous glass receptacles it is named after; I remember a row of them sitting on a sideboard at my parents’ house. They can be beautiful objects, especially those from the 18th century. But how often do any of us use them?
My sense is that decanting wine has gone out of fashion — not that it was ever uncontroversial. In my very first job as wine controller of the Tate Britain restaurant, I was berated by a customer for decanting his Pichon Lalande 1975. ‘You’ve de-aged my wine by 20 years!’ he expostulated, bafflingly. It was always, in any case, a practice mainly limited to two types of wine: classed growth quality red Bordeaux and vintage or crusted Port. (Richard Olney in his classic monograph Romanée-Conti reports that decanting has never been the practice at Burgundy’s most celebrated domain.)
There was — and remains — a strong practical imperative in both cases: the need, with un- or minimally filtered red wine and Port, to separate the clear wine from the sediment or dregs, the residue of grape skins and, sometimes, pips and stems that gradually fall out of the wine as it matures. Bottle-matured Port has far more of this stuff than any other wine and, here, the necessity of decanting is unquestioned. With classed growth Bordeaux, my impression is that the wines throw less deposit these days; I’m not sure of the technical reason.
However, there’s a second argument in favour of decanting, which has nothing to do with separating the clear wine from the sediment. Decanting is also a way of aerating the wine and thus speeding up its oxidation — or in more poetic language, letting it breathe.
Do wines need to breathe? Actually, I would say in many cases they do. Remember that older wines have been sealed up in a kind of prison since their early youth (in barrel), in contact only with the tiny pocket of air between the level of the wine and the bottom of the cork. Taking in fresh air refreshes and rejuvenates them, for a while at least, and can remove traces of mustiness, although not cork taint, which is another matter.
“Decanting is a simple process, but must be made to look as complicated as possible”
Young wines that have been made anaerobically or reductively can also benefit from air to take away reductive aromas. Controversially, my wine merchant father believed in decanting not only red Burgundy, but complex white Burgundy also (Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, Corton-Charlemagne). There’s a logic in that such complex white wines, as much as red wines, need time to develop. Jobard’s Meursault is almost undrinkable at less than five years of age. The prejudice against decanting white wine may be partly explained by the quasi-medical appearance of a pale-yellow liquid in a receptacle.
Deciding how far in advance to decant is a knack, acquired by trial and error. Finding the sweet spot with older vintages of Bordeaux, where they have fully opened up, but not faded away, is the Holy Grail of the obsessive decanter (I mean the person who decants). An hour or two is the usual range with ‘middle-aged’ Bordeaux, I find. Once you know how a wine reacts to decanting, you can be more precise.
Finally, how do you do it? In my first book, The Bluffer’s Guide to Wine, I said that decanting was a simple process, but must be made to look as complicated as possible. The indispensable accessory is a candle, which must be placed in such a way as to illuminate the neck of the bottle, so you can see when the first sediment arrives there and then stop decanting. With vintage Port, this part can be tricky as the glass used for the bottles is so dark. If in any doubt, a piece of muslin or a decanting funnel placed in the mouth of the decanter can be used as a safeguard to catch sediment and pieces of cork, which may have fallen into the bottle — don’t worry, they won’t affect the flavour. Despite what Jane MacQuitty wrote recently in The Times, don’t dispose of those decanters yet — use them and I’m sure they’ll enjoy being filled once more with ‘the true, the blushful Hippocrene’.
Got a hangover? Heave yourself out of bed and throw yourself on the mercy of one of these literary cures, suggests Emma Hughes.
If happiness writes white, inebriation’s ink is a tedious shade of puce. The older you get, the clearer it becomes that there really is nothing remotely interesting about getting sloshed. Like Tolstoy’s cheery families, all boozy evenings wobble unsteadily along the same trajectory: one top-up too many, tears on the taxi floor and a trail of toast crumbs.
It follows that reading about intoxication itself is boring beyond description. But hangovers — ah, there’s something for a writer to get his teeth into. Think of the now-legendary one in Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim, surely among the most masterful descriptive passages ever committed to paper:
‘Dixon was alive again,’ it begins, with biblical solemnity. ‘Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the morning.’
A day spent chewing the duvet with the curtains drawn is bad enough, but braving the world with a killer hangover can change the course of history. In Flashman at the Charge, our anti-hero is afflicted by a bout of drink-induced dyspepsia so dramatic that it ends up starting the Charge of the Light Brigade. Overhearing ‘the most crashing discharge of wind’ coming from Flashman’s direction, Lord Cardigan mistakes it for the report of a mortar and launches the attack. Russian Champagne — his tipple of choice — has a lot to answer for.
PG Wodehouse:Worcestershire sauce, raw egg and red pepper
Where there are hangovers, there are hangover cures. And the most famous literary one is, of course, whipped up in P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves Takes Charge. A gateway drug to the prairie oyster, it consists of Worcestershire sauce, raw egg and red pepper, made marginally less icky by vigorous whisking. ‘Gentlemen have told me they find it extremely invigorating after a late evening,’ Jeeves reassures a dubious Bertie Wooster, who lies groaning beneath his counterpane.
Will it actually help if your head feels like a cement mixer? It’s hard to say, but anything that tastes this grim is bound to do you some good.
Ernest Hemingway: A jigger of absinthe, diluted with iced champagne
If Jeeves’s remedy is the liquid equivalent of a rap on the knuckles, Ernest Hemingway’s is a karate chop to the kidneys. True to form, he christened it Death in the Afternoon. ‘Pour one jigger of absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness,’ he instructs—and then, even more ominously: ‘Drink three to five of these slowly.’
Death in the Afternoon
This one might sound tempting in the wake of Christmas parties, when you’re feeling festively emboldened and actually have the component parts to hand. However, all but the steeliest are likely to take one look at the noxious brew and heave it straight down the sink. Still, the very act of mixing a Death in the Afternoon is guaranteed to perk you up a bit—if only because it reminds you that things could be an awful lot worse.
Kingsley Amis: Beef paste and vodka
Amis, as we’ve seen, was the Poet Laureate of sore heads, but it turns out he was equally creative when it came to cooking up cures for them. Common to all of his homemade hangover remedies seems to have been enough vodka to floor a Cossack. Those of a sensitive disposition might want to give his suggestion of beef paste and vodka a swerve and stick to a tried-and-tested Bloody Mary.
Bruce Robinson: Aspirin, saveloys and a walk in the country on a blustery day
The most effective hangover cure of all isn’t, strictly speaking, a literary one, in that it doesn’t come from a book and wasn’t concocted by an author. However, it is taken from the screenplay of Bruce Robinson’s iconic film Withnail & I that’s become a set text for the sozzled. The perennially soused stars throw everything at their hangovers, from aspirin to saveloys eaten in the bath. But it’s Uncle Monty — he of the buttonhole radish — who comes up trumps by forcing his reprobate houseguests to go on a blustery walk. When you’re really feeling the wrath of grapes, you could do a lot worse.
(Warning: The clip below contains language of which even the strongest-willed among us might resort to in case of a terrible hangover)
Whether you’re doing it for health reasons or simply for a New Year’s challenge, giving up alcohol isn’t necessarily all that easy. To help you on your way, the Country Life office put a variety of non-alcoholic spirits to the test. Here’s what we found.
From the very first glass of wine, proffered by a watchful parent at Sunday lunch, to the ensuing years of experimentation and excess (often with messy consequences), learning to drink is a rite of passage, at least in the Western world. But according to a 2019 survey by Drinkaware, the UK’s largest recent study of drinking behaviours, the proportion of adults who drink alcohol at least once a week has decreased by 4% since 2015. It’s young people who are driving down the numbers: 58% of adults aged between 55 and 74 drink at least once a week, compared with 30% of 16–24 year olds.
Drinks brands have responded and, in recent years, a mass of new non-alcoholic drinks companies have sprung up, seemingly from nowhere, with overwhelming success (Pentire; Seedlip) and even mega-brands, such as Heineken and Gordon’s, have jumped on the bandwagon, producing alcohol-free versions of their already well-known beers and spirits, not wanting to be left behind.
It was an investment worth making. Spurred on by Generation Z’s reluctance to drink and everyone else’s efforts, sales of alcohol-free and low-alcohol beers were up £171 million in 2021 compared with 2016. The ‘low-and-no’ market is expected to be worth more than £400 million in 2024.
What makes a fantastic non-alcoholic spirit? It should be as tasty and as complex as its alcoholic counterpart and work well with mixers and in cocktails. Cheers to that!
Pentire Seaward
What they say ‘A botanical non-alcoholic spirit made by distilling unique plants native to our coastline in Cornwall.’ It’s meant to taste zesty, verdant and bright, with key botanicals of pink grapefruit, sea rosemary, woodruff, sea buckthorn and wild seaweed. It’s plant-based, low-calorie and completely alcohol free.
What we say ‘I’m getting quite a buzz from it,’ announced Giles Kime, a non-alcoholic beer expert, excitedly at the office tasting. ‘Very easy to drink; soft,’ said Emily Anderson. Another correctly identified the citrusy notes—‘more orange than lemon’. An all-round favourite and excellent alternative to a fruity G&T.
What they say ‘A floral blend of peas and hay with traditional garden herb distillates. To make a delicious non-alcoholic drink, pour 50ml of Seedlip Garden 108 over ice, top with tonic and garnish with a sugar snap pea or mint sprig.’ Other ingredients include spearmint and hops. It’s vegan, allergy friendly, calorie and sugar free.
What we say The general consensus among the staff was that Seedlip Garden 108 smelled exactly like a garden and tasted even better. ‘Strong and potent,’ said someone; ‘a good alternative to Pimm’s,’ said another. ‘You can imagine drinking this with a pea frittata in the summer,’ said Amie Elizabeth White, rather wistfully.
What they say ‘This bold and refreshing non-alcoholic spirit combines juniper, ginger, habanero, orange and sage.’ It was the winner of the 2021 People’s Choice Spirits Award in the Mindful Drinking category and won a 2021 Beverage Testing Institute Gold award in the Conscious Spirits category. For every bottle sold, Salcombe Distillery donates 1% of the retail price to the Marine Conservation Society.
What we say ‘Like alcohol without the burn,’ said Tiffany Daneff; ‘Nice with lots of ice and lots of lemon,’ said Hetty Lintell. Everyone noted the clean, modern bottle design with its sail-shaped label (a nod to Salcombe’s nautical heritage) and agreed that it smelled sensational (sharp, rather than sweet).
What they say ‘Our take on London Dry Gin. Aromatic botanical ingredients, including real juniper.’ After debuting a new and improved recipe in 2021, CleanCo’s Clean G achieved gold at the International Wine and Spirits Competition. CleanCo is the brainchild of Spencer Matthews (his brother, James, is married to Pippa Middleton), who decided to embrace sobriety after the birth of his first child, following cycles of excessive drinking during his twenties, when he starred in Channel 4’s Made in Chelsea.
What we say We liked the bottle (again) — reminiscent of traditional green gin bottles. ‘It’s clean, crisp and fresh and a really good replacement for proper gin,’ noted Emily, who likened it to another popular brand and suggested serving it with wedges of frozen lime.
What they say ‘Delivering the bold taste of Gordon’s balanced with raspberry and strawberry flavours, Gordon’s Pink 0% is expertly created to deliver all the taste, but none of the alcohol.’ The spirit contains no more than 0.015% ABV.
What we say Despite smelling and tasting sweet (‘like squash or sweets’; this isn’t for someone who prefers savoury or citrus flavours), the team agreed that it had a surprisingly dry texture. A good alternative to a summer-berry cocktail.
What they say ‘This indulgent elixir is made with tree saps, aromatic plants and ancient remedies used to relax and unwind. Enjoy complex notes of wood and bright spice with a calm, dreamy feeling.’ There are no artificial colours or flavours and it’s vegan and gluten free.
What we say A favourite with the male members of the team. ‘That’ll do,’ said James Fisher, retreating to a corner with a full glass. ‘I like it,’ said Ben Harris. Men of few words. After some coaxing, they went on to say that they thought, of all the samples, Nightcap tasted the most like alcohol and had a good kick and warming burn to it.
What they say ‘Fluère Smoked Agave is distilled from real Agave. We add smoked hickory wood to give that smoky, earthy richness that goes with it. Mix it with some cola for a treat or grapefruit juice and soda for a fresh zinger.’ The brand’s original offerings included a raspberry-flavoured spirit that used floral botanicals once consumed by the Roman legions (who believed it kept them fit and healthy).
What we say The word ‘smoky’ came up over and over again. ‘Smoky, followed by a fresh, menthol-y end,’ proffered Hetty; ‘similar to a smoky margarita,’ said Rosie Paterson. We liked the idea of it served over ice with a generous squeeze of fresh lime juice and sugar syrup.
Not to be confused with cider, the art of perry-making is more than a craft — it’s an English passion. Ben Lerwill meets some of our best producers of fermented pear juice.
Clear pear juice in a glass with pears in a wicker basket
You can say what you like about Napoleon Bonaparte, but he wasn’t one for dishing out idle praise. When he reportedly described perry as ‘the English Champagne’, it was a sparkling endorsement of the doughty orchardists of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire. The palaces of imperial France were a long way from the fields of the Wye Valley — nonetheless, a bottle of fine, bittersweet bubbles was seemingly enough to bridge the divide.
Perry has history, provenance and prestige. It is, in very basic terms, an alcoholic beverage made from fermented pear juice: perry is to pears what wine is to grapes and cider is to apples.
However, although wine and cider have legions of international devotees, perry occupies a much more specialised place in public (un)consciousness. It had a seat at the top table during the Georgian era but has since experienced periods of near-obsolescence. Happily, despite the fruit it depends on being notoriously troublesome to work with, the drink itself is still very much with us.
At this point, you should dismiss any preconceptions based on Babycham, Lambrini or mass-produced pear cider. Fine perry is an artisan product. Its traditional UK heartland lies in the three counties previously mentioned, with supporting roles from makers in Somerset and Monmouthshire. It typically ranges in strength from 4% to 8% ABV and is commonly sold in 750ml bottles (chill well and pour carefully — leave any sediment).
It often has a pale, straw-coloured hue with a fresh greenish tint. The key fact, however, is this: a good perry is a thing of life-enhancing, effervescent complexity. Among those in the know — and this number is unquestionably growing — the best small-batch makers in the UK are seen as alchemists.
Perry pears growing in a Herefordshire orchard. Credit: Alamy
‘Perry can be phenomenal,’ enthuses Adam Wells, who spent a decade steeped in wine before being wowed by tasting single variety perries and is now writing an entire book on the drink. ‘What I find amazing is that it carries this hugely broad swathe of different flavours and aromas. Some are reminiscent of tropical fruit and you think “gosh, this is from a pear that grows on the Welsh borders”, yet it’s taking me to warmer, riper places. In many ways, it’s closer to wine than cider.’
More than 100 different varieties of perry pear are still grown in the UK, although many are now incredibly rare. Today’s makers have been known to hunt age-old, half-forgotten orchards in search of single specimens. The fruits themselves tend to be smaller and far more astringent than greengrocers pears and their names roll off the tongue like a kind of rural incantation: Tumper, Brown Bess, Sweet Huffcap, Seckle. They make for terrible eating and beautiful drinking.
‘The old adage is that perry pears prosper when they’re growing in sight of the clump of trees on top of May Hill,’ discloses Dave Sanders, chairman of the Three Counties Cider & Perry Association, referring to the prominent rise in the land between Gloucester and Ross-on-Wye. ‘The best of them are beyond exceptional when they’re pressed and fermented. Perry used to be the drink of royalty. It was the choice of the very wealthy until wine took over.’
It’s important to note that the drink is by no means solely a British one. The pear, like the apple, is thought to have its origins in the Caucasus Mountains. It began to be cultivated some 4,000 years ago, subsequently spreading across Europe and flourishing where the conditions were right. Both Normandy and the Mostviertel region of Lower Austria still produce high-quality perries, although the first recorded mention of a pear-based alcohol dates all the way back to the writings of Roman author Pliny the Elder.
Yet fine perry isn’t exactly a doddle to make. One of the reasons the drink still largely eludes the mainstream is that mastering perry pears requires serious toil and patience. ‘Planting perry trees is this great leap of faith,’ continues Mr Wells. ‘You’re often looking at two decades before you start getting a crop worth a mention. One maker, Eric Bordelet, doesn’t consider perry trees to be fully mature until they’re about 60 years old. Then, when they do bear fruit, they’re often biennial; so you’ll only have a crop every other year or not even as regularly as that.’
Sporadic crops aren’t the only hindrance. ‘Perry pears also tend to have a very narrow window of ripeness. The Thorn variety, for instance, needs pressing as soon as it comes off the tree. The Moorcroft variety can sometimes be ripe for only 24 hours — press it before and it’s under-ripe, press it after and it’s mulch. Then you get some varieties, such as Yellow Huffcap, that rot from the inside out when they’re still on the branch. So it’s challenging. And pear juice itself is very fragile. If you’re not careful, it can be susceptible to turning into acetic acid.’
From beautiful blossom to effervescent perry, pear trees yield joys at every stage. Credit: Alamy
All of which makes the perries produced by renowned makers such as Gloucestershire-based Charles Martell and Herefordshire-based Tom Oliver — who, remarkably, is also tour manager for rock duo The Proclaimers — all the more impressive. Once the pears are pressed, teasing the best from the juice is often about knowing when to let Nature take over, allowing wild yeasts and natural fermentation to develop the taste profile. Get it right, however, and the results are memorable. In his Wainwright Prize-winning book on rare foods and drinks, Eating to Extinction, writer Dan Saladino describes fine perry as having the taste of ‘ripening orchard fruit, tinged with the acid of lemon drops, the bone-dry tannins of tea leaves and the sugar of candyfloss… all accompanied by a tickle of tiny bubbles’.
The renewed respect that drinkers have gained for perry in recent years is down in part to awareness of the expertise involved. ‘There’s been a 180˚ turnaround in its success,’ notes Albert Johnson of the family-run Ross-on-Wye Cider & Perry Company. ‘One report last decade said it was a drink in terminal decline and retailers should consider delisting it. That’s how poor the outlook was. Yet, what we’re seeing nowadays, with the slow-food movement, is that people are more concerned with where something has come from, who made it and whether it’s been made with values that align with their own. And perry is right up there as a rare and special thing. It has connection to the soil.’
In UK law, the names perry or pear cider (the terms are legally no different) can be used to describe any alcoholic drink with a minimum of 35% pear juice, which, in some cases, is wholly from concentrate. Aficionados would like to see this altered so the perry label can only be applied to purer ‘full-juice or high-juice’ perries, differentiating it from the quaffable — but less authentic — versions on the market. This is, however, unlikely to happen, so the best advice is simply to know what you’re buying. Mr Johnson, meanwhile, would love perry to gain more presence in culinary circles. ‘In the UK, we have this amazing heritage of perry-making that goes back four or five centuries, but there isn’t really much representation of perry in UK gastronomy at all,’ he laments. ‘I’d love to see more chefs experimenting with food pairings and being aware that this drink is right on their doorstep.’
Top 5 perry varieties, as picked out by Adam Wells
Perry enthusiast and writer Adam Wells picks out five favourite makers, with notes on each. You can buy direct or find a broad range of perries at the online bottle shop Cat In The Glass.
1. Ross-on-Wye Cider & Perry Company, Herefordshire
Thorn & Flakey Bark Oak Cask Perry
‘The company has an amazing range of single-variety perry pears and is very dedicated to showcasing the unique flavours. The Flakey Bark perry is made from the only six mature specimens of this tree’ www.rosscider.com
2. Bartestree, Hereford, Herefordshire
‘Dave and Fiona Matthews are unbelievably talented makers. They often use single varieties, but beautifully handled’
3. Tom Oliver, Ocle Pychard, Herefordshire
‘He’s almost universally thought of as one of the world’s great perry-makers. His keeved perries, in particular, are sublime. They show so much complexity and skill. I’d put one in front of anyone and be confident they’d be converted’. www.oliversciderandperry.co.uk
4. Cwm Maddoc, Broad Oak, Herefordshire
Range of products from Cwm Maddoc Cider & Perry
‘The owners create really elegant and deli-cate aperitif perries. They are makers that deserve a lot more attention than they get.’ www.hollow-ash.co.uk/cwm-maddoc-cider-perry
5. Little Pomona, Bromyard, Herefordshire
‘The family is doing some of the most exciting and experimental things with perry pears, not only by making amazing perries, but by doing things such as co-fermenting pears with grapes and really showing what these fruits are capable of.’ www.littlepomona.com
The great Rosemary Verey masterminded this garden in Oxfordshire which remains naturally glorious despite being geometrically-inspired. Vanessa Berridge paid a
Not just woolly jumpers: Sheep fleeces offer an eco-friendly solution to lining paths.
Credit: Getty Images
Absinthe is almost unique among alcoholic spirits for having been outlawed in even some of the world's most liberal countries — but how did that happen? Martin Fone traces back the story to find the tales of debauchery, hallucination and even murder that once gave the drink its bad name — and looks at how it's returned to prominence.
'After the first glass you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are' — Oscar Wilde on absinthe.
It might just be a case of absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. After a century languishing in the doldrums, a victim of the mythology that surrounded it, absinthe is now one of the trendiest spirits in town with over 200 brands to choose from and a global market value worth £113 million in 2023. The UK even has its first absinthe distillery, the London-based Devil’s Botany.
Made by distilling a neutral base spirit with macerated herbs and spices, principally wormwood, which, together with anise, gives absinthe its characteristically bitter liquorice flavour. Its electric-green colour comes from an infusion of fresh herbs prior to bottling. With an ABV (alcohol by volume) percentage ranging between 45 and seventy-four per cent, its strength combined with its mix of ingredients has given it its infamous potency.
Absinthe’s spiritual home is the village of Couvet in Switzerland’s Val-de-Travers region, a place of refuge for French loyalists escaping from the terrors of the Revolution. One such was Dr Pierre Ordinaire, a retired physician. Wormwood, Artemisia absinthium, had for centuries been used as a medicinal herb to treat indigestion and stomach disorders, but it was acerbic, a characteristic reflected in its botanical name, derived from the Greek apsinthion, meaning undrinkable.
A literal take on absinthe as the ‘green fairy’ at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Ordinaire set about developing a palatable wormwood-based elixir and by 1792, so the story goes, had produced a potion made by macerating fifteen botanicals in grape spirit, which he called Extrait d’Absinthe. On his death he left the recipe and a sum of money to his housekeepers, the Henriod sisters, who sold the drink as Dr Ordinaire’s Absinthe.
However, an advertisement in a Neuchatel newspaper from 1769 for ‘Bon Extract d’Absinthe’ suggests that the Henriod sisters were making a wormwood-based drink well before Ordinaire had arrived in Couvet and, to cloud the waters further, one Abram-Louis Perrenoud had started distilling absinthe commercially as a beverage rather than an elixir in the village sometime around 1794.
What is clear is that an émigré French lacemaker, Major Dubied, commercialised the production of absinthe through a combination of strategic marriage alliances and entrepreneurial acumen, marrying his daughter off to Perrenoud’s son, Henri-Louis, in 1797, and, a year later, establishing Dubied Père at Fils after acquiring the recipe either from Perrenoud or, possibly, the Henriod sisters. In 1805 Henri-Louis, after changing his surname to Pernod, set up his own absinthe distillery under the name of Pernod et Fils, just inside France in Pontarlier, a move that avoided paying taxes at the border with Switzerland.
A chromolithographic advertisement for the well known brand of Dornier-Tuller. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)
Absinthe’s distinctive flavour made it a welcome addition to the menus of French cafes and bars. Its popularity was further strengthened in the 1840s when French army doctors prescribed it as a protection against fevers, malaria, and dysentery during the Algerian campaigns. The destruction of the country’s vineyards by phylloxera from 1862 meant that cheap wines and brandies were no longer available, and even more drinkers turned to absinthe. At the height of its popularity, 36 million litres were being produced a year, twenty-six alembics at Pernod et Fils’ distillery accounting for 20,000 litres a day alone.
Known as ‘the green fairy’ to its adherents and ‘the wicked green witch’ to its detractors, absinthe was not for the faint-hearted. ‘After the first glass’ Oscar Wilde wrote, ‘you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world’. Degas’ drinkers portrayed in L’Absinthe (1876), one of around 130 canvases featuring the drink produced by artists such as Manet, van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Picasso, stare vacantly and glumly into the distance.
Vincent van Gogh’s Café table with absinthe, 1887. Found in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
Associated with fits, convulsions, hallucinations, insanity, and even death, absinthe drinkers were popularly described in Paris as ‘buying a one-way ticket to Charenton’ — the name of the local lunatic asylum. By the early 20th century around 30 per cent of the adult male population of large swathes of France had been hospitalised with what was known as absinthisme.
In the 1870s the influential French psychiatrist Valentin Magnan studied the effects of thujone, a neurotoxin found in wormwood which is hallucinogenic in large quantities and lethal in larger quantities still, by force-feeding pure wormwood oil extract to laboratory animals. He discovered that they went into violent convulsions before dying. This convinced him of the deleterious effects of wormwood on the human body, effects which, he believed, could be passed on to the unborn descendants of absinthe addicts.
By the early 20th century, an unlikely alliance of the emerging temperance movement and winegrowers desperate to regain their market share after the phylloxera disaster seized on Magnan’s findings to pressurise the authorities to rid society of absinthe’s menace. Their cause was helped in 1905 by an allegedly absinthe-addled Swiss farmer, Jean Lanfray, murdering his heavily pregnant wife and two daughters, an outrage that shocked Europe.
The Belgians banned absinthe in 1905, and soon other countries followed suit. The Swiss, after a referendum held on July 5, 1908, specifically wrote absinthe’s prohibition into their constitution, a move that drove production underground. It was banned in America in 1912 and in France by Presidential decree on March 16, 1915, where pastis quickly took its place. The Italians banned it after a referendum in 1932.
Henri Privat-Livemont’s Art Nouveau absinthe poster. (Credit: Getty)
Magnan’s research has now been discredited, his methods likened to trying to establish the effect of drinking coffee by feeding animals with pure caffeine, and the levels of thujone were unlikely to have been dangerous. More harmful were the inferior and often poisonous ingredients which unscrupulous distillers used to cash in on the demand for a cheap absinthe, such as copper sulphate for colouring and antimony trichloride to produce the clouding effect. In effect, absinthe had become a victim of its own success.
The ban on absinthe was not universal, though. It could be made and consumed legally in Spain, Pernod distilling it in Tarragona until the 1960s, and in what is now the Czech Republic, where the local version had lost it’s ‘e’ and was known as absinth.
Never a popular drink in Britain, absinthe was not banned outright but, as it had to be imported, supplies had dried up. Nevertheless, drinks entrepreneur George Rowley saw an opportunity to bring the Czech absinth into the UK, exploiting the definition of what was an acceptable level of thujone in the EU Council Directive 88/388/EEC.
In the summer of 1998, working with his local Trading Standards Officer, Paul Passi, Rowley demonstrated that the amount of thujone in absinth was well within the limits defined by the EU. His Czech drink was launched with some style in the appropriately louche setting of the Groucho Club in November 1998.
Gradually, the green fairy got the green light and other countries began to legalise the drink, and even the French formally lifted their ban in 2011 after pressure from the Fédération Française des Spriteux. For aficionados, though, the new wave of Bohemian-style absinthes which emerged in the 1990s were inferior substitutes. To recreate the true essence of the 19th century spirit, the French Absinthe Museum collaborated with Rowley and Marie-Claude Delahaye to create La Fée Absinthe in 2000, the first real absinthe to be distilled commercially in France since the ban.
Those now enjoying a taste of la vie bohème owe a lot to George Rowley.
Glamorous American bars were once a familiar sight in London, catering to US and British citizens alike, but only two of the historic ones remain: The Savoy and Stafford Hotel. On the eve of Thanksgiving, Robert Crossan goes in search of both.
In the mix: The Stafford’s famous American Bar is still serving up all the classic cocktails.
Marilyn Monroe, by all accounts, didn’t much enjoy her sojourn to England in 1956. She was here to film the risible box-office turkey The Prince And The Showgirl with an irascible Laurence Olivier, who earned Monroe’s permanent opprobrium by demanding that she ‘try and be sexy’. The film, by many accounts, aged the already hardly Hebe-esque looks of Olivier by 15 years.
Norma Jean (1926–1962) did find respite from the diurnal rigours of filming in a bar whose name alone would have been a tonic for her homesickness. Not that The Savoy’s American Bar had ever approved much of tonic, or anything so otiose when it came to the making of cocktails.
The increasingly bibulous Monroe didn’t sink the bar’s ‘Montgomery’ creation — a hospital pass of a drink made with a 15:1 gin-to-vermouth ratio — but Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) did, according to the bar’s most venerated bartender Harry Craddock. The latter published The Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930 and it is still in print now.
The American bar at the Savoy Hotel in London as it is today. (Photo by In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images)
Today, the American Bar serves up drinks of a potency that, although more than satisfying to neophyte cocktail sippers, might well be considered tap water by former guests including the aforementioned Hemingway, author F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) and singer Frank Sinatra (1915–1998).
‘Tastes have absolutely changed since those days,’ says Chelsie Bailey, current head bartender and only the third woman to have the role. ‘I bought The Savoy Cocktail Book when I was 22 and just starting out as a career bartender but, I have to be honest, I think 80% of the recipes in there are terrible! They’re not balanced and we don’t have any of them on the menu today. American drinks, back in 1893, typically contained two or three different drinks, with very minimal dilution. Whereas, in Britain, we were drinking fortified wines and spirits with good measures of tonic waters and sodas.’
At a time when British accommodation was largely limited to grimy railway hotels and taverns, The Savoy, with its theatre, grill restaurant and sleek bar, was a genuine game changer — and one that made visiting Americans feel a little more at home in the smoggy cynosure of the capital.
‘We’ve rewritten lots of Harry’s recipes for our menu, with the thought in mind of what he would do if he were bartending today,’ says Ms Bailey — who was inducted into The Savoy after a stellar career at some of London’s most innovative bars — most recently Happiness Forgets in Hoxton (8–9, Hoxton Square, N1). There’s the Olive Twentieth Century, named after the express train that linked New York and Chicago between 1902 and 1967, and the Kings Cobbler, a liquid nod to The King’s recent coronation. Despite the land-borne location of The Strand, the bar is neither the US or UK, but rather somewhere in between for Americans to feel at home in and Brits to escape to.
A brisk 20-minute walk will take drinkers with deep pockets to the discreet Stafford Hotel in St James’s — home to the only other historic American Bar in London to survive from those boozy transatlantic days. The West End had a number of American Bars in the early decades of the 20th century, catering for transatlantic travellers. The Hotel Cecil on the Strand had a courtyard bar that became known as The Beach, described by The Gourmet’s Guide to London (published in 1914) as ‘the most American spot in London’ which, in the summer months, was filled with ‘pretty girls sunning themselves and waiters hurrying to and fro with cold drinks and long straws’.
The Stafford Hotel, St James Place, London SW1.
The 800-room Cecil was demolished in 1930 to make way for Shell Mex House. It was a dismal end — although not as violent as the destruction of The Carlton Hotel’s American Bar, which was bombed by the German Luftwaffe. New Zealand’s High Commission building now stands on the same site (on the corner of Pall Mall and Haymarket). The old Regent Palace Hotel and its Art Deco-style American bar named Chez Cup — close to Piccadilly Circus — suffered a slower decline. Hotel guests once included the likes of writer Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) and poet Wilfred Owen (1893–1918), but it declined into a seedy miasma of pink carpets and plywood walls before closing for good in 2006.
Benoit Provost, The Stafford’s head bartender for more than a quarter of a century, is respectful of The Savoy’s attempts to tweak and modernise, but admits to being more of a stickler for tradition. ‘We have a lab here at the hotel where we’re always creating new drinks,’ he says, together with Salvatore Megna, director of mixology, ‘but the classics are all here, too. Drinks such as an Old Fashioned, a Manhattan or a martini have very few ingredients, so they look simple, but getting the balance correct takes real skill.’
With hundreds of Ivy League college ties and pennants hanging from the ceiling and a menu whose bar snacks remain resolutely wedded to American tastes (macaroni cheese, buttermilk chicken and glazed pork ribs), The Stafford’s American Bar could scarcely be more different to its Strand rival. The bar became the watering hole of officer-class American military personnel based in London during the Second World War — and has since played host to Stateside giants, such as President Ronald Reagan (1911–2004), actors Paul Newman (1925–2008) and Bradley Cooper (b.1975) and Bing Crosby (1903–1977), who would play impromptu rounds of golf from the reception area to the bar.
‘We make a big thing of Thanksgiving [November 23 this year] here,’ explains Mr Megna, ‘and we always have a large gathering on US election nights. It definitely got a little more tense in 2016 when Trump won, as we had supporters from both sides, but it didn’t get beyond the level of healthy debate, I’m delighted to say.’
Yet even The Stafford has traditions that extend beyond the US’s 50 states: throughout its history, the chief barmen have always been French (Mr Provost trained at the Lycée Professional catering school in St Nazaire) and a bar seat still sits reserved for the late Nancy Wake, a French resistance fighter who spent her final years living at the hotel, sipping gin and tonics at 11am, her hotel bill paid in part by The King (then Prince of Wales) in return for her actions in the Second World War.
‘It is a collaborative effort,’ says Mr Megna, as he reveals a bottle of exceptionally rare Mexican tequila he has recently sourced to be stocked in the bar. ‘It may be called the American Bar, but anyone is welcome here,’ adds Mr Provost. It would appear that, at both The Savoy and The Stafford, the American Bar concept, a place that embraces what were once commonly held virtues of the American Way — outward looking, ready to innovate and, of course, to never be too far away from another superbly poured (and potent) cocktail — is still firmly intact, if only you know where to look.
Barter Books, one of the largest second hand bookshops in the UK, based in the old railway station in Alnwick, Northumberland.
Credit: Getty
Our columnist Agromenes turns away from his usual focus to take a look at the Dry January movement. It's fair to say, er, that he's against it.
Dry January is an abomination. It’s a Puritan hangover deriving from the belief that all enjoyment should be punished. Bah! Humbug! Agromenes is firmly orthodox: great festivals should be fully celebrated and the 40 days of Christmas and 50 of Easter observed. Self denial comes earlier, in Advent and Lent — abstinence is a preparation for enjoyment and not a punishment.
Praise-God Barebone and his miserable Puritan crew thought good, healthy merry-making morally wrong. They therefore abolished Christmas and outlawed mince pies (as we looked at recently in ‘When Christmas was cancelled’). Yet, if the fortunate make themselves miserable, it doesn’t help the dispossessed and the unfortunate. Open-handed generosity, yes. Self-induced misery, no.
The Romans recognised the unpleasant nature of January and it’s not changed. We need to continue the spirit of Christmas to lighten its short and dark days. We should consign drink-free, meat-free January to the misery merchants who are never happier than when they’re uncomfortable. Our trouble is that this puritan spirit is endemic in British attitudes and spoils even the best of actions.
Going green is admirable, as long as it doesn’t involve insisting that it is a good thing to be cold or not to travel. We should bend our efforts to keep our homes warm in a way that doesn’t destroy the planet, but being cold for the sake of it doesn’t make us morally better. Avoiding unnecessary flights is important, but with a bit of planning there are railway alternatives. And there’s the rub. Our age of instant gratification doesn’t do planning.
“‘Take the waiting out of wanting’ became the slogan became the motto of modern society.”
We even abolished the Sunday Observance laws partly by arguing people couldn’t manage to prepare two whole days’ necessary provisions. We add enormously to our carbon footprint by ordering things at the last minute, expecting groceries to be delivered within an hour and getting the car out for journeys where there’s a perfectly reasonable public-transport alternative. We simply don’t want to bother to plan. Indeed, we talk about being time poor when, for most people, our hours of work are shorter, our domestic conveniences far greater and our access to services more extensive than for any previous generation. Those restrictions meant that our forebears had to plan. Our freedoms mean we don’t need to plan — at enormous cost to the planet.
That fundamental change in attitudes was encapsulated in 1972 with the establishment of Access, a credit card designed to compete with Barclaycard. A simple phrase was coined to express its advantages. ‘Take the waiting out of wanting’ was the claim and, by accident, the slogan became the motto of modern society. A society in which we have so much that we don’t need to plan and prepare, so much that we overindulge and so much that we feel the need to punish ourselves for it.
This is not to ignore the many, both here and abroad, who have too little. It is simply to acknowledge the global reality that the rich world is run for the comfortably off. We are the people who keep the wheels of a consumer society turning and it is to us that businesses sell our instant lives, from ready-cooked meals to same-day delivery. It’s all lastminute.com.
Today, it’s that society that is changing. Sixty years on, we see that everything won’t be available everywhere, always — even for the comfortably off. Food security has come back onto the political agenda. Worldwide weather changes imperil supply chains and, increasingly, the supplies themselves. They exacerbate geo-political tensions and instability.
The world is a more uncertain place and that uncertainty unsettles our instant society. Planning becomes more necessary and preparation the name of the game. We’ll find that we must wait more and want less. We might even discover that it makes life better.
