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