Cotswolds Cloudy G&T

Everyone I'm sure is aware for my love of gin. Newly released CDG, the fruit of the labour from the chaps at my distillery is my new gin of choice for a G&T - fresh, citrusy and slightly floral with spice - it's bloody delicious. One thing I love about a CDG&T is the louching, like a fine whisky or absinthe even. And here's the explanation as to why that happens…

CDG is distilled incredibly slowly and is packed full of botanicals. After an overnight maceration of the base botanicals; juniper, coriander seed and angelica root, the remaining botanicals are added to the still for an eight hour distillation. This means the gin has an exceptionally high botanical content explaining the luscious mouth feel, even at 46% abv, coupled with the big nose and full flavour.

All of this flavour, aroma and mouth feel is down to the high levels of essential oils in the gin. At 46% and at room temperature these oils remain dissolved in the alcohol, but when you chill the gin or dilute it, the oils separate slightly causing the cloudiness you see in CDG. This could be prevented by chilling the gin, encouraging cloudiness and then filtering this out, but by doing so the flavour, which is contained in the suspension of these oils, would also be removed.

We’ve decided to keep our gin as it is; non-chill filtered, keeping the cloudiness, the full flavour and aroma and the mouth feel. Much like a fine single malt, we are celebrating the cloudiness and the flavour that this represents, creating and coining the ‘Cotswolds Cloudy G&T’ as well as the ‘Cotswolds Cloudy Martini’.

My perfect CDG&T - 50ml CDG, 200ml Fentimans Light Tonic, heaps of ice, garnished with pink grapefruit peel and a bay leaf.

Cotswolds Cloudy G&T

Bloody Mary Soup

This weekend we had a couple of friends to stay. Also in the industry, I knew of our shared love for fine booze and so decided to whip up a Bloody Mary style soup - complete with real voddy! It was delicious - a real treat. Spicy, peppery, tomatoey and just topped off nicely with a little kick from the vodka, I used Vestal - made with potatoes harvested in the Kaszebe region in northern Poland, this has a stunningly rich creaminess and has a glorious depth of flavour.

Bloody Mary Soup

FOR THE SOUP
1.5kg tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, peeled
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 onions, roughly diced
3 fresh red chillis (or to taste), roughly sliced
4 sticks celery, roughly diced
2 large carrots, peeled and roughly diced
450ml good chicken stock
3 sprigs curly parsley
Vodka
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons crème fraiche

This was souper easy to make (apologies for the awful dad joke but it had to be done!). Pop all of the tomatoes and the garlic in a roasting tray and add to the oven at around 180 degrees. In a large pan on a medium heat, brown the onions, then add the celery, carrots and chilli. Once the veg in the pan softens add the chicken stock, remove the tomatoes and garlic from the oven and throw into the pan. Simmer this all down for a good 20 minutes and leave to one side to cool. Hollow out a round granary loaf and pop a few hunks of the hollowed out bread into the soup (this gives a lovely thick creaminess to the soup once blitzed). Add in the parsley, season to taste and transfer to a blender for blizting. Ladle into your hollowed out bread bowl to serve and garnish with a dollop of creme fraiche and a leaf of parsely. Boom.