Scottish Gin News

Round-Up November 2019.

Published: 1st December 2019

Our end of month round-up captures some of the exciting news from the wonderful world of Scottish Gin. From new Scottish Gin expressions to distillery openings and more. If you’ve got a story you’d like us to consider for inclusion in next month’s Scottish Gin News Round-Up then email hello@thegincooperative.com.

New Scottish Gins

Orkney Gin Company’s Camp 34 Lemon Gin

This 20cl limited edition proved so popular, this it sold out within days of release. Orkney Gin Company created a new special edition Lemon Gin, dedicated to a Prisoner of War Camp that housed Italian prisoners, which was based in Burray, where the Orkney Gin Company gins are produced. This is a fresh gin, with predominant lemon zing, followed by juniper warmth and sweetness. The gift box also contains the perfect tonic pairing of Franklin & Sons Rosemary Tonic with Black Olive. If you missed out on this, why not try their new Sloe & Crow Gin, made to 37.5% ABV and contains juniper. The fruity, yet velvety sloe and handpicked Orcadian crow berries have been aged for months and again, the gift box also comes with matching lemon tonic.

Learn more about Orkney Gin Company here.

The Wee Farm Distillery’s Clydesdale Gin

The second in the Artist Edition of gins from The Wee Farm Distillery, Clydesdale Gin is distilled using a variety of classic gin botanicals with the inclusion of fresh local rhubarb and apples. The gin is described as having notes of fruit on the nose with sweet apple and rhubarb to taste. The gin features the artwork of a locally-bred prize-winning Clydesdale Horse by Jan Laird, that was specially commissioned following the success of Drovers Coo. True to the spirit of Scottish farming, the distillery team wanted to pay tribute to the working farm horse and celebrate the breed originating from South Lanarkshire.

Learn more about The Wee Farm Distillery here.

Cairngorm Gin

Cairngorm Gin is distilled in small batches of no more than 70 bottles in Carrbridge, a valley in the famous Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands of Scotland. Inspired by the outdoors and his local landscape, founder and distiller Jack wanted to create a traditional London Dry gin with depth and a taste of the Highlands. Together with fresh water collected from the River Spey, botanicals used in this gin include cloudberries, elderflower, Caledonian pine and sweet orange peel. This bold infusion of botanicals and Highland Mountain water results in a floral, fruity gin with subtle earthy tones.

Learn more about Cairngorm Gin Company here.

Hall’s of Campbeltown’s Ceann Loch Citrus Gin

Brought to you by the team behind Beinn an Tuirc’s Kintyre Gin range, Ceann Loch Citrus Gin was created to celebrate the opening of Hall’s of Campbeltown, a small independent bottle shop in the  town based in Argyll & Bute. This gin has been described as a zesty balanced Scottish Gin with bursts of citrus from the use of pink grapefruit, lemon and coriander in the distillation.

Learn more about Beinn an Tuirc Distillers here.

The Ullapool Gin

The Ullapool Gin is the latest expression from the team who make Seven Crofts Highland Gin, the Highland Liquor Company. They have captured the essence, landscape and flora of Ullapool in a bottle, with punchy spicy notes and an earthy, herbal backbone – reminiscent of the heather covered hills surrounding Loch Broom. The bottle features an Ullapool illustration, created by local artist Charlotte Watters. This gin is available to purchase on the HLCo. website and in a few select retailers in and around Ullapool.

Learn more about Highland Liquor Co. here.

Badachro’s Spiced Winter Gin

Badachro Distillery has released a rare, very limited (only 50 bottles!) Winter Spiced Gin. When we visited earlier in 2019, we saw (and smelled) this delicious tipple, which uses Badachro Gin as the base, soaked with sloe berries over 2 years then winter spices were added for the last year to create a soft, full flavoured, sweet liqueur style drink. Down to a handful of bottles at last check!

Learn more about Badachro Distillery here.

Rock Rose Reserve Sherry Cask Edition

Hot off the heels of their first Cask Edition release last month, which was aged in sweet Sauternes desert win, the team at Dunnet Bay Distillery have release another Rock Rose Reserve – Sherry Cask Edition, aged in an Oloroso Sherry Cask. The result is a nutty, rich, warm gin with light sherry notes.

Learn more about Dunnet Bay Distillers here.

Avva’s Blink Scottish Gin

The team at Avva Scottish Gin has created Blink Gin. The use of butterfly pea as a botanical gives this colour changing gin its magical properties. The gin changes from a topaz blue to a beautiful purple pink with the addition of tonic or lemonade. Hence Blink… from Blue to Pink in the blink of an eye.

Learn more about Avva Scottish Gin here.

Scottish Gins, retail exclusives

Scottish Gin is finding regular shelf space in the supermarkets, something which can be difficult to achieve. For some gin makers, this route is part of their business plan and for others, supermarkets aren’t a priority. Along with the Co-op, Sainsbury’s, Aldi and Lidl, Morrisons are working towards showcasing more local produce in regional stores through their nationwide ‘Nation’s Local Foodmarkers Events’. The campaign sees the stores’ buyers travelling the width and breadth of the UK looking for quality local produce to be featured in local stores in the producers area.

Kinrara’s Distillers Edition Rose & Cardamom Gin

Rose & Cardamom Gin was announced as part of the Morrisons retail exclusive and returns from Kinrara Distillery, back by popular demand as part of their special Distillers Edition range. 

Learn more about Kinrara Distillery here.

GlenWyvis GoodWill Gin

The team at GlenWyvis are Sharing the GoodWill with their signature GoodWill Gin now also available in 10 Morrisons stores across the north of Scotland. 12 months in the making, they’re delighted to be part of this nationwide initiative to bring local distillers’ products to the communities’ supermarket shelves.

Learn more about GlenWyvis here.

McQueen Gin’s Blood Orange & Cranberry Gin

The latest festive flavoured Scottish Gin expression from McQueen Gin is Blood Orange & Cranberry Gin, available exclusively at Scottish Aldi stores. It’s described as a zingy winter warmer with the zesty blood orange and cranberry flavours complemented by distinctive juniper notes, creating warm aromas, brimming with festive nostalgia.

Learn more about McQueen Gin here.

Scottish Gins, back by popular demand

Crafty Distillery’s Galloway Gin

Galloway Gin is back from Crafty Distillery after its initial release was sold out. 100% Scottish Gin: milled, mashed, fermented and distilled from local grain with locally foraged botanicals including brambles, samphire and tiny tart red crab apples all from Galloway’s forests, hedgerows and coast. The new design and packaging is available in only 500 bottles.

Learn more about Crafty Distillery here.

Scottish Gins, new packaging

Esker Gin

Esker Spirits revealed a brand new bottle for their signature Esker Gin. The bottle features a beautiful eye catching blue skin with their Esker logo surrounded by their namesake Esker artwork. The intricate illustration details eskers, which once ran through Royal Deeside leaving ridges, and other notable local landmarks and features such as Kincardine Castle, a stag’s head and Silver Birch trees, which are tapped on their distillery estate to produce their unique ingredient, silver birch sap.

Learn more about Esker Spirits here.

LoneWolf Gunpowder Gin

BrewDog Distilling, makers of LoneWolf Gin has re-released their LoneWolf Gunpowder edition in new black packaging. Keeping with the LoneWolf theme, the bottle is black in appearance featuring the brand LoneWolf and copper foil detail. Described as having a first wave of oriental spice on the palate from pink, black and Szechuan peppercorns, closely followed and balanced by sweet citrus notes drawn from the peel of Paraguayan bitter oranges, Sicilian lemons and Mexican pink grapefruits, finished off with an all-out star anise assault.

Learn more about BrewDog Distilling here.

Scottish Gin News

The Bothy Experience receives 4 Stars by VisitScotland

We were delighted to see The Bothy Experience destination receive a 4-star rating from VisitScotland. The Gin Bothy Experience is housed in a former stables block in the village of Glamis, home to the world famous Glamis Castle. The visitor attraction offers a history of both the Gin Bothy brand from its humble roots making jam to its current range of gins and spirits. Alongside this, visitors can learn more about the history of bothies and bothy songs, a tradition that continues to this day. The Bothy offers a shop to the public but also Gin Bothy tasting sessions, with festive tasting sessions throughout December, and private tasting sessions available. Since opening in October 2018, The Bothy Experience has become a popular place for private parties and corporate events. Owner Kim Cameron said “We’re located within the grade 1 listed buildings that were part of the former Angus Folk Museum and our historic farm steading, complete with its bothy and blacksmith’s forge, is a great place for a get together.”

Learn more about Gin Bothy here.

Lind & Lime – no plastic is fantastic

The team at Port of Leith Distillery, who make Lind & Lime Gin, celebrated a significant landmark in the company’s bid to go green, as they made the switch from synthetic stoppers to sustainably sourced natural cork stoppers, removing the last element of plastic from their packaging. We applaud this move and hope to see more Scottish Gin producers making similar moves away from single use plastic towards recyclable material. Corks are not collected as part of doorstep recycling schemes but, provided they are natural, they can be put in your home compost bin or recycled in some shops or used as a mulch on plants when chopped into small pieces.

Learn more about Port of Leith Distillery here.

Loch Ness Highland Gin appears on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch

It was great to see Loch Ness Spirits’ signature Highland Gin feature on the popular Channel 4 Sunday morning programme, and to great acclaim. The Gin Foundry’s co-founder Olivier Ward is a regular presenter covering the gin segment. One of three gins featured was the Loch Ness made Highland Gin. Olivier highlighted the fact that all the botanicals used in this gin are hand picked within 500 metres of the Highland distillery, giving the team at Loch Ness Spirits a particularly unique provenance perspective. 

Learn more about Loch Ness Spirits here.

Scottish Gins winning awards

We congratulate all the Scottish Gin makers who have recently picked up awards, both in taste and packaging categories, from world spirit competitions in recent months. 

Congratulations to Deerness Distillery who came out as winners in the Classic Gin category at the prestigious Great British Food Awards, established by the team behind Great British Food Magazine, set-up to help celebrate and recognise Britain’s brilliant food and drink producers. Judging is undertaken by some of the UK’s most well know chefs, drinks experts and food and drinks writers. Deerness were selected winners by chef and owner of Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Raymond Blanc, who is one of Britain’s most respected chefs, restaurant owners and is regarded as a maestro in the food and drinks world.

Learn more about Deerness Distillery here.

Congratulations to Hrafn Gin for their win at the prestigious Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Wine & Spirit Competition, which is the sister competition of the London based International Wine & Spirits Competition (IWSC). With their signature botanical of Mandarin, Hrafn Gin Thought & Memory is doing particularly well in the Asian markets so it’s of no surprise that the competition has rewarded this popular expression with a Silver Award, one of only two Scottish Gin producers to win at the annual competition.

Learn more about Raven Spirits here.

Congratulations to The Teasmith Gin for winning a Masters medal at The Spirits Business for Design & Packaging. Electric Spirit Co. and Highland Liquor Company for receiving Highly Commended Design Awards for their Achroous and Seven Croft bottles respectively at the IWSC.

Learn more about Teasmith, Electric Spirit Co. and Highland Liquor Co.

Apologies to anyone we’ve missed. We’ll be updating and sharing our Awards Round-Up soon.

Scottish Gin Events

Look out for Scottish Gin producers showcasing their spirits at Christmas markets and events up and down the country during the festive period. We know Pickering’s Gin are showcasing their range at the famous Edinburgh Christmas Market, ideally placed next to the Big Wheel in Princes Street Gardens and they are also pitched up at the (undercover and heated!) Festival Village above Waverley Mall. Further north, Aberdeen Inspired’s Christmas in the Quad is hosting a number of local gin producers, including Esker Spirits, The Teasmith and Loch Loch Spirits, makers of eeNoo Gin, among many more. Support your local shops and markets this Christmas and your local producers by checking out what’s going on locally over the festive period.

We’re delighted to see The Gin School Scotland hosting a 12 Gins of Christmas event in Stonehaven on 15th December, bringing together 12 producers from all over Scotland under one roof for an educational and intimate meet-the-maker gin tasting event. Get your tickets here.

There have been some exciting announcements for successful returning Scottish Gin events in 2020. Recent winners of the Scottish Gin Event of the Year at the annual Scottish Gin Awards, the Big Big Gin Festival returns to Edinburgh’s Corn Exchange in April, even bigger and better than before. Get your tickets here.

Returning to Glasgow’s SEC in March, is The Gin To My Tonic Show (TGTMT), one of only three major large scale gin events taking place in the UK in 2020, by the reputable TGTMT team. We’re currently offering 15% off the ticket price (enter GINCOOP at checkout). The event will showcase over 60 gin brands with over 250 varieties of gin. The large scale event offers well-stocked gin and cocktail bars, as well as cocktail making masterclasses, taste challenges, presentations from distilleries, tonic and garnish tutorials, and theatrical bartender performances, plus lots more! Get your tickets here.

The Gin Cooperative continues to grow

We’re ecstatic to have surpassed 7,000 followers on Facebook recently. Our website went live at the end of April 2018 and since then we’ve worked tirelessly to showcase Scottish Gin in a way that’s considered and curated. Capturing and telling the true stories behind the people and brands, educating and encouraging the consumer to discover and explore Scottish Gin.

As our membership continues to grow along with our reputation as the premium resource for all things Scottish Gin, we will continue to focus on raising the bar for how Scottish Gin is spoken about, showcased and presented to the consumer. How Scottish Gin is presented is important to us as a business and as long-time gin drinkers. It’s an amazing industry filled with lots of hard working, talented and creative people making fantastic Scottish Gin and spirits.

From the offset, we’ve been clear and consistent about what we consider makes a gin Scottish and what is required to be a member of The Gin Cooperative. We’re proud to be supporting and working with Scotland’s gin makers and brands who are based in Scotland and make their gin in Scotland. For us Scottish Gin is the real spirit of Scotland.

A big thank you to our audience for your likes, shares and comments. Also, thanks to all our members and those in the world of Scottish Gin who’ve supported us, encouraged and inspired us and are helping us showcase Scottish Gin.

Special Thanks

A special thanks to Laings of Inverurie and Cognito on the Corner in Aberdeen for hosting us for “home” and “bar” photoshoots respectively during November. Both providing beautiful backdrops for our Scottish Gin collection. We’ve had a lot of support from local bars and hotels over the last year who have let use their bars, locations and facilities helping us to create our original content so we’re grateful to everyone who’s supported us and accommodated us over the last year.

International Scottish Gin Day 2020

Following on from the success of International Scottish Gin Day 2019, we’ve been working hard behind closed doors putting in place our plans and goals for International Scottish Gin Day 2020. As well as confirming ISGD 2020 will take place on Saturday 8th of August 2020, we’re also proud to have brought on board a number of new sponsors for 2020.

For over 50 years, LSA International has designed and created contemporary glassware collections. What originally started out as a small collection of traditional Polish enamelware from co-founder Janusz Lubkowski, grew into an internationally acclaimed, premium household brand, exploring natural wood, leather, porcelain, enamelled steel and mouth-blown glass. With his daughter having taken the lead as Creative Director over the last 20 years, LSA International continue to innovate with the design of hundreds of new products every year, whilst using traditional materials and production techniques in the family’s native Poland. We look forward to sharing more of the amazing history and beautiful designs of LSA International throughout 2020.

Learn more about LSA International here.

We’re also delighted to announce Aberdeen based DAC (Design and Code) as our next official sponsor to be involved with International Scottish Gin Day 2020. The design studio covers a number of creative disciplines including web development, animation, 3D, branding and more. An experienced team of creatives with a strong portfolio of clients across a variety of business sectors.

Learn more about DAC here.

With a number of other sponsors to be announced next year, we’re excited to have the support of so many businesses who will help us share the amazing story of Scottish Gin around the world.

Learn more about International Scottish Gin Day here.

The Gin Cooperative Features November 2019

Here’s a look back at the editorial features we published in November 2019.

Scottish Gin News Round-Up October 2019 – read it here.

Experience Scottish Gin, Lost Loch Spirits – read it here.

Scottish Gin Christmas Gift Guide – read it here.

A New Chapter in Scottish Gin, Stirling Gin – read it here.

Shaken & Stirred, Original Wild Mountain Thyme, Gin Bothy – find out how to make it here.

Experience Scottish Gin, Isle of Harris Distillers – read it here.

My Scottish Gin Journey, The Gael Spirits Company – read it here.

The Future of Gin, Peter Sim, Raven Spirits – read it here.

Beautiful Botanicals – read it here.

A Recipe for Gin, Something Clear, McLean’s Gin – read it here.

A New Chapter in Scottish Gin, Isle of Bute – read it here.

Shaken & Stirred, The Last Word Cocktail, Kinrara Distillery – find out how to make it here.

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