We recently made 80 shirts for the London Gin brand Sipsmith, pioneers of the gin craft movement. For a guide to making winter cocktails and to learn their latest Ginnovations, we met in their distillery with Jessy to learn how to make three of their favourites.
We’re obsessed with making the best gin there is.
It technically started on 14th March 2009, however there was a lot of preparation in the run up to the start of the company. For two and a half years before then, our founders had been battling very hard to change a significant law which had been in place since 1751. Craft gin was pretty much illegal because of this law, so we were very much pioneering a movement where the law was revoked.
I think the number one thing is that we’re obsessed with making the best Gin there is, without compromising any quality. That means getting the best equipment, the best team on who are passionate about gin. Our stills are all made by the Carl family which are the Rolls-Royce of still producers and who commissioned our three stills! We’ve got Prudence who is 300l, then we’ve got Verity and Constance who are 1500l and are made from 100% copper inside and out (yes they all have names!) Prudence got his name from Gordon Brown telling us to be more economically prudent, haha!
Every single drop is made here in Chiswick.
You can have a dry or wet martini, you can have it stirred or thrown, with a twist or an olive. I’m going to make an extra dry martini with a twist.
-Use 50ml of our London dry gin (a martini is traditionally a gin-based drink, not vodka!)
-I’m just using 5ml of extra dry martini for the vermouth
-Now for the perfect martini, you want a good amount of dilution, so I would stir about 50 times
-Make sure your glass is in the freezer or fridge getting nice and chilled -Then I’m just going twist a slice of lemon peel to finish off!
We’re going to mix it up a little bit and use two different gins, lemon drizzle for the base of this cocktail and sloe gin for the top.
- Use a good hearty double measure of lemon drizzle gin into your tin
- 20-25ml of Lemon Juice depending on how sour you’d like it
-Then add in 12.5ml of your basic sugar syrup and fill the tin with ice
- Give it a good shake! Add the contents into a highball with ice (crushed ice is best!)
- So that it’s not too sweet, just top it with a little drizzle of sloe gin!
The Hot Gin and Gingerbread is a simple but a seriously festive serve, anyone could make it at home. Move over mulled wine!
-Add 50ml of London Dry into a mug / something that will take hot water
-Add 50ml of Sipsmith’s Gingerbread Syrup
-Top with hot water and garnish with an orange wheel
I would recommend our lemon drizzle gin to pair with seafood – yum. Or you can bake a Lemon Drizzle cake and add this gin to the icing. Our Sloe gin goes well with a good cheeseboard, oh yeah!
Our hot gingerbread G&T was inspired by when the river thames were frozen and people used to warm up by having a hot g&t and market stalls would be selling gingerbread men too. So this has been very much recreated at the pop up ontop of John Lewis, with the frozen ice rink.
Alternatively, if you would like any bespoke printed shirts made for your company, please don’t hesitate to get in touch for a quote at info@beaufortandblake.co.uk.
