TASTING NOTES

An elegant and smooth gin with a beautiful delicate herbal element, refreshing citrus core and fruit juniper base notes.

We choose to work with Slake Spirits for this gin as they share our values in creating quality products that have a deep connection to Sussex and the South Downs. We wanted our gin to be representative of the estate, celebrating the flora and fauna that you will find here. Tom from Slake shares that ethos with his own products, foraging local botanicals that speak of the terroir of Sussex. Utilising Tom’s skills as an expert forager and master distiller allowed us to create a gin that is as unique and invigorating as the landscape that inspired it. Tom’s methodical and meticulous approach to his craft is something that we share at Wiston. It is this focus on creating something with a sense of place and respecting the traditions of its craft that drove this project forward.

Phase one of the project was to forage for potential botanicals that we could use. This involved a number of trips across the estate to scout out potential sites where we could responsibly forage ingredients, keeping in mind availability and seasonality. Once we had an idea of what was available, Tom took small amounts of the botanicals and prepared some small single distillates of each botanical. We then tasted each of these and noted down the flavour profile of each and discussed potential “hero” botanicals. The stand out one being the Douglas Fir which we have chosen to celebrate in the final blend.

We then set about creating different blends from these initial distillates, adjusting the balance of botanicals and seeing which combinations worked. This resulted in a final base blend that was a strong start point. Tom then created five blends with small differences based on our initial base spirit, tweaking the supporting botanicals and a blind tasting panel was set up to get some unbiased feedback. From this a final recipe was created which Tom then scaled up for production.