Boadicea® Gin 'Classic', 50cl
£34.75
International Wine and Spirit Competition (IWSC) medal winner, July 2019
Boadicea Gin in its classic blue bottle is available year round. Distilled in copper to create an ultra-smooth London dry gin. Deliciously enjoyable on its own over ice, or add just a splash of tonic and garnish with orange and fresh thyme to create a longer cocktail.
To create Boadicea Gin, we first build a bed of botanicals in the column of our 300 litre copper alembic still. These are layered in the same order each time to ensure that we achieve consistency of the finished liquid. Botanicals include juniper, three kinds of citrus and with a nod to the Iceni - nettle.
A delicious, easy-to-make cocktail is one part of Boadicea Gin and one part elderflower tonic, served over ice and garnished with a slice of fresh orange and fresh thyme. We call this a Boadicea Gin Thyme!
| Tasting notes: Herby citrus notes come through with the sweetness from the nettles first, then a nice punch of juniper with the spice coming through at the end. Very smooth and great to sip neat, or with just a splash of elderflower tonic. |
| Alcohol: 40% ABV. |
| Allergens: Gluten free and does not contain any notifiable allergens. |
| Pack size: 50cl bottle. |
| Barcode: 5060461990130 |
Matt's Notes:
"Gin is essentially a flavoured vodka, so it was a natural spirit for us to create. I was conscious that there is a huge amount of customer choice with gin, so decided that we would create a classic London dry gin and not get involved with flavours and sweetened gins.
With a London dry gin, the distiller has to work harder to create a quality product from all natural ingredients. We can't mask faults with flavourings or sweeteners.
I also learned patience when creating this gin. While we could run the still much faster and have a shorter day, we believe that we achieve better quality by taking our time and letting the still do its work over a longer run. I hope that you enjoy our Boadicea Classic London Dry Gin. It takes time to craft."
Botanicals
Boadicea Gin Classic is created using juniper and coriander, plus 3 kinds of citrus, and with a nod to the Iceni - nettle.
In Iceni times, nettle would have been a valuable and versatile ingredient in both food and drink, especially given its abundance and nutritional value. The Iceni likely used nettle leaves much like other foraged greens, boiling or steeping them to remove their sting and to unlock a mild, spinach-like flavour.
Nettle delivers a herbaceous note to our gin, balanced by the citrus.
Distillation
Alcohol in our 300 litre pot still is gently warmed to create vapour. This passes up the column and through a bed of botanicals, in a process called vapour infusion. Think of this as the difference between steaming and boiling in cooking. Vapour infusion gently captures the aroma and delicate flavours from the botanicals.
The distillation process takes around 10 hours and the newly-made gin is collected at very high strength - over 82% ABV across the run. The gin is then gradually reduced to bottle strength over several days, using water that has been reverse osmosis filtered. This ensures that the water is as pure as possible and enhances the flavour, aroma and mouthfeel of the resulting finished gin.
London Dry Gin
London Dry gin is a juniper-forward spirit defined by strict production standards. It requires all-natural botanicals, no artificial flavours or colours, and no added sweetness post-distillation. This results in a crisp, dry taste. The flavour of the gin is influenced by the type and amount of botanicals used, the type of still, and how it is operated.
Juniper must dominate, but additional botanicals like coriander and citrus are allowed. The gin is distilled with these botanicals to infuse flavour, then diluted but never altered afterwards.
Despite the name, London Dry gin can be produced anywhere, as long as it meets these purity and process requirements.
Why The Blue Bottle?
2,000 years ago, in Iceni times, Caesar (the Roman invader) wrote that the Britons ‘dye their bodies with woad to produce a blue colour’.
We colour our bottles blue in a fitting tribute to Boadicea – the Queen of the Iceni. We also adorn our bottles with pewter triple spirals; powerful symbols of the Iceni tribe.