Inspiration and Botanicals:
What inspired the creation of the 57˚North gin? Were there specific flavours you aimed to capture?
The 57 ° North Gin project is a collaboration between our team at Porter’s Gin and the Cruickshank Botanic Garden. The creation of the recipe required us to work closely with Mark Paterson, Head Curator at the Garden to identify botanicals that we could use to extract unique flavour profiles with the aim of distilling a part of the University’s botanic garden into a bottle.
What botanicals were chosen for this gin, and how do they contribute to its flavour?
The lead botanical in the recipe is the Thuja plicata (western red cedar) leaf, which we sourced from the Cruickshank Garden before being distilled using Porter’s Gin’s unique vacuum distillation process. The distillate produced is beautifully light and has surprising tropical notes such as crushed pineapple and coconut.
How did you select which botanicals to include from the University’s Cruickshank Botanic Garden? Is there any significance to the botanicals chosen?
As the Curator of the botanical garden, Mark Paterson has a wealth of knowledge on which botanicals were available and the potential flavour profiles we might be able to extract via distillation. The western red cedar is grown in the garden in abundance, but it is also a plant that has a surprisingly delicious flavour when crushed. Our expectation was that these tropical notes would also pull through when distilled and so we put it to the test. The resulting distillate was even tastier than we originally expected and hence formed the backbone of the new recipe.
Flavour and Tasting Notes:
Can you tell us about the flavour? Is it citrusy, floral, herbal, or spicy?
The gin recipe has a traditional backbone of juniper and coriander seed which provide the floral and citrus elements, with the western red cedar then adding tropical finish with notes of coconut, pineapple, and fresh citrus.
How would you recommend enjoying this gin? Neat, with tonic, or in a cocktail? Are there any specific mixers you would suggest enjoying it with?
We’d recommend serving 57° North Gin in a tall glass with lots of ice, a premium tonic, and a quarter of passion fruit.
What characteristics set this gin apart from other gins? How does it differ from the 525 Limited Edition gin that Porter’s and the University collaborated on in 2020?
The new 57° North Gin recipe has been a longer and more involved collaboration between the Porter’s Gin team and the University. Once we had identified the potential plants we could source from the gardens, we then had to experiment with different botanical maceration times and distillation temperatures to ensure we extracted the most delicious parts of the red cedar. The result of the process is a unique and unexpected style of gin.
Craftsmanship and Process:
Why ‘57˚North’ and why the Cruickshank Botanic Garden?
The University of Aberdeen’s latitude is 57° North and is considered to be a meeting place between old and new. In the same light, we have always considered Porter’s Gin to be a combination of old and new, respecting tradition while innovating. In practice, we do this by taking traditional botanical recipes and distilling them in an ultra-modern vacuum still called a rotary evaporator. Given the alignment on ethos, the name perfectly symbolised the collaboration of the gin bottling.
Could you describe the distillation process for this gin?
Traditional gin making requires botanicals to be distilled using copper pot stills that function in a similar way to a kettle. The ingredients of alcohol, water and botanicals are left to macerate for a period of time before being heated up to turn the alcohol into a gas when it hits its boiling point of 78.37 °C. The evaporating spirit is then condensed and captured which is the resulting “distillate”. As alcohol is a solvent, it captures the flavour profiles of the botanicals used in the maceration.
Through consultation with scientists from the University of Aberdeen, at Porter’s, we built a vacuum still, capable of distilling at much lower temperatures to avoid heat damaging delicate botanicals. The resulting distillates capture light and natural flavours which otherwise might be lost in the traditional process.
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