Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin, 70cl

Product Information

It’s all quite unexpected, but the gin is never short of engaging — and I daresay it’s a versatile operator, too. That’s more tonic that we’d normally use as a rough guide, but we think the suggested serve is spot on (and they’re the experts! J. Rigney (who once worked as executive director at Baileys), the gin is a mini-travelogue of sorts, its 12 distinct spices and botanicals a record of Rigney’s career-long world travel, everything he learned about the eastern practice of distilling herbs and botanicals. Despite how efficiently gin can be produced, Rigney intentionally slows the process, combining the two major gin distilling methods.

It features a selection of 9 botanicals, including rosemary, elderflower, lemon and mandarin, as well as Champagne essence. Among the reasons Rigney founded his distillery here is that the 2014 opening of The Shed made it the first distillery to open in the entire Irish province of Connacht in 101 years. Or something else in common with him if your given name also includes the words “His Serene Highness,” or you went to Amherst College).We love the Drumshanbo gin bottle and think it looks a bit like an upturned art deco lampshade (if you squint a bit and imagine it naked, sans labels). Grapefruit, is the initial flavor followed by juniper then tea, finishing with herby, warm spices of anise, cardamom and coriander. Floral on the nose, lite lemon and green tea on the tongue for a moment and so smooth with a hint of spice on the finish. It also gives great results lending its tea flavor in popular cocktails like the Negroni, the French 75, the Tuxedo and the Bramble.

The nose of the gin is bold with pepper and spice, with lots of juniper giving the aroma a grassy, almost green, character that’s studded with notes of dusky earth. Meadowsweet lends a delicate floral sweetness to the overall bouquet, complementing the green tea notes. Every precious drop of Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin is slow-distilled by hand and proudly bottled, sealed, and labelled by the team in the distillery.He created The Shed Distillery of PJ Rigney, with its medieval copper pot stills, and began a quest to fuse oriental botanicals with the local Irish ones. I’m not a fan of super citrusy gins, and prefer juniper and herbal flavors to stand out more than citrus, so this is really nice stuff. Satisfy your ‘Curious Mind’ and follow Explore Your Pour for Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin inspired cocktails and more!

A fully-guided experience including an expert tasting of Drumshanbo Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey with one of our Curious Ambassadors, and finishing with a refreshing Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin and tonic at the Honey Badger Bar in our majestic botanical glasshouse. This right here is the The Muff Liquor Company's Irish Potato Craft Gin, named after a village in Donegal, Ireland. The “gunpowder” in the Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin name refers to Chinese gunpowder green tea, one of the four botanicals that are vapor-distilled into the gin (after it’s been pot-distilled with eight others). Gunpowder’s distinct tea flavor is a natural good pairing with fruit jams straight from your fridge. The result is a gin that tastes uncommonly good thanks to an uncommon marquee ingredient, combines drinking traditions from cultures 5,000-plus miles apart, pays homage to a love story when two paths crossed in the local iron mines (see No.From the West – Meadowsweet from Drumshanbo, Ireland, juniper berries from Macedonia, angelica root from Germany, coriander seed from Romania and orris root from Morocco. Slightly sweet, reminscent of matcha, there are hints of vanilla ice cream and even some saffron amidst the otherwise herbal base. The bright and spacious Jackalope Café serves a wide range of hearty Irish foods, along with a curious selection from the many journeys of the Curious Mind of PJ Rigney. The gin, distilled with gunpowder tea, is joined by a touch of Sardinian citrus, for a zesty take on the original.

In our original review (part of our A-Z gin reviews), we picked out the star anise as something we found really coming through. The gin:tonic ratio for the signature Drumshanbo gin and tonic serve is 40:140 which, by our reckoning, is a touch over triple the tonic to gin.Rigney combines vapor distillation of fresh Chinese lemons, kaffir limes, and Oriental grapefruits, along with the intriguing gunpowder tea, with the pot-still distillation of eight other botanicals ranging from Chinese star anise to local Drumshanbo meadowsweet. Side by side with the Botanist, Gunpowder Gin has a bolder bouquet with a greater emphasis on citrus and spice. The distiller recommends the best gin to vermouth ratio for Gunpowder is 4 to 1 and suggests grapefruit bitters in place of orange. The result of this passionate exploration is Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin – unique, extraordinary, and as remarkable as the elusive creature PJ has occasionally glimpsed in the fields, the Drumshanbo Jackalope. I would never use it for a Martini, because I love the classic very dry Bombay or Tanqueray Martini — pour a little vermouth in the glass, swirl it around, and pour it out before adding the gin.