Caspyn Cornish dry gin is a classic dry gin. The ingredients include hibiscus, lemon & orange peel, lemon grass, lemon verbena, Japanese tea, gorse and orris to hold it all together. Due in part to this dichotomy, Cornish folk and business work fiercely to both promote and defend their own. For a place that isn’t even a country, Cornwall harbours an incredible amount of national pride. And this sentiment is also ringing true for one of the county’s newest sectors: distilling. All of the botanicals are added to an organic grain spirit and left to macerate overnight. The still is switched on first thing in the morning and runs for six hours, producing a grand total of 250 bottles worth of liquid. Once off the still, the gin is cut to 40% with Cornish water and left to rest for a couple of days before bottling. Caspyn Gin to taste…

Bog Myrtle is also known as “Sweet Gale” and is a short shrub common in nitrogen poor bogs in North America and Europe. Bog Myrtle was a common component of beer flavoring in Europe prior to the availability of hops. Drink Finder’s range includes a couple hundred unique flavours to complement any taste, so be sure to The taste is almost savoury – salty notes definitely come through, evoking the Cornish seaside. I think this gin would be a superb complement for a dirty martini or even a red snapper. I tried it with lemon and mint to garnish, to keep the fresh taste. Caspyn recommend serving with orange, but I think any citrus will complement the floral and citrus notes in this gin. Midsummer Dry GinThese botanicals are in addition to a traditional gin bouquet, which oddly is what comes out when Caorunn gin is tasted. Range of loose leaf and pyramid bagged teas from the Tregothnan Estate blended with the finest leaves from Assam and Darjeeling. Also herbal teas.

Exceptional handcrafted artisan gin, hand-distilled with passion using wild foraged Cornish botanicals. Flavoured gin is an exciting evolution of the original gin formula, with an array of options as plentiful as your own imagination. Fruity flavours like raspberry, lemon, citrus and mango are perhaps the most popular, but more creative concoctions with notes of vanilla, chocolate, peppercorn or ginger are also available. A range of award-winning artisan wines, ciders and soft drinks from Polgoon's family-run vineyard and orchard in west Cornwall.

Cocktails

The trio are also looking at making their own rum using imported molasses. It looks set to be the first English-made organic rum, and will set the path for the distillery’s gins to be made fully organic as well. (They won’t be the first Cornish gin makers to make this transition – Southwestern Distillery launched its Twin Fin rum in 2020, made with imported Caribbean spirit.) The Perrys understand their place both as part of a close-knit distilling community in Cornwall, and in their own community in Launceston. In June, as world leaders were gathering in Carbis Bay for the G7 Summit, the Eagle House Hotel hosted the Gin 7 Summit. Designed as a celebration of Cornish gins, the evening included tastings and an auction in aid of the Cornwall Blood Bikes charity. The couple have also expressed their ambition to keep distilling at the hotel, so their distillery can “serve the town”. Juicy, hoppy, unfiltered hazy Pales, IPAs and DIPAs, made in Penryn to ethical and sustainable standards. Smooth, fresh gin, handcrafted on the north coast of Cornwall; made with organically-grown ingredients. Today the Eagle One Gin range – which includes the juicy Bright Summer Gin and the warming, spicy Bold Winter Gin – is distilled on a bespoke 230-litre still named Bob, after Robert, Count of Mortain, who built Launceston Castle.

With tonic that peel/spice combination is accentuated; it’s a spiced G&T, with a layer of green so dark it’s as though you’re lost in a forest at night. It’s a bold interpretation of a summer gin, with cucumber dominating so much of the taste that the flower infusion barely gets to make a mark. It’s less singular than the lemon verbena-led Caspyn Gin, but despite that new found complexity we’d still opt for the original. Cornish Summer Cup to taste… Hand-crafted, small-batch Cove selection of beers from the Driftwood Spars micro brewery in St Agnes. The stone circle is called The 19 Merry Maidens. It's gorgeous. If you're ever in the area head on down there. Award-winning white and rose Bruts and still wines from the vineyard near Bodmin in the Camel Valley.As is common knowledge now, the very British G&T has its origins in the tropical British colonies as gin was used to mask the bitter flavour of quinine which was the only effective anti-malarial around at the time. Quinine was dissolved in carbonated water to form tonic water and voila, the gin and tonic was born. There are few communities prouder of their homeland than the Cornish – and its distillers have taken this ethos to heart The Midsummer Dry ginThe Midsummer gin ramps up the floral and citrus flavours with the addition of an English cucumber infusion. Whilst they say it will have a slight green tinge, I didn’t notice it and the cucumber is definitely not in your face like some cucumber gins. Availability: Rather uncommon in the US. Either your local large-selection liquor store, or online. The Falmouth Distilling Company’s ‘home’, on a small industrial estate just outside Falmouth, is one the team will grow into – and one they plan to share with others, too. In the centre of the room sits a huge wooden dining table; Gillatt explains that they hope to host supper clubs and gin tastings around this table, when the time is right.

In the gin I have tried to capture the Cornish spring in a bottle. Not only by using fresh and local ingredients but also by using those flavours that remind me of my childhood. That excitement of Spring, when the mornings are crisp and fresh and the winter is fading. New flavours are coming into season, new smells fill the garden. Award-winning, quadruple-distilled gins and vodka full of flavoursome natural botanicals. Made on The Lizard.

The Ever-Exciting World Of Flavoured Gin

This idea of community is at the heart of Cornwall’s most established gin brand, Tarquin’s. Founder Tarquin Leadbetter, a classically trained chef, was just 23 when he began distilling with his mother and sister in 2012. At the time their company, Southwestern Distillery, was the first commercial distillery to have opened in the county for more than a century. Caorunn gin captivated me from the first time I heard about. Exotic botanicals are nothing new in modern gin. With Big names like Bombay getting into exotic ingredients designed to invoke a certain region, it shouldn’t be surprising that a gin coming out of Scotland would attempt to do something that invokes a certain vision of the pastoral and idyllic Scottish countryside. While Gillatt, Hillier and Warfield are building a home for their brand, Alex Palmer-Samborne, founder and distiller at Skylark Distillery, literally set up shop in his house: a converted barn near Lostwithiel, where he lives with partner Christina and dog Bentley. Rowan Berry is a common wild tree in the UK. Often as small trees with bright orange-reddish berries. The Bebington brothers grew up a stone’s throw from the beach in South Africa and have felt something of a tidal pull to be near the sea ever since. Cornwall was somewhere Shaun always ventured to when he needed a break from London, so when he decided to progress his gin plan, he knew that was the place to be.