I was invited to an event at Park hotel in Delhi that promised to add to our knowledge of gin to. Tim Stones, the international brand ambassador of Beefeater gin by Chivas brothers, was going to conduct the talk today. He represents Beefeater globally, visiting markets worldwide to educate bartenders, consumers and the press about the past, present and the future of Beefeater gin and has been integral to the success of the Beefeater 24’s global cocktail competition.
We were greeted with a refreshing gin punch with lemon wedges in it. We met Tim before the event started and he told us that globally gin growth is better than the vodka market. However the share is marginal compared to the other white spirit. Another interesting fact we learnt was that unlike wine, gin does not age with time. Beefeater is also the only major brand of gin left in London with a turnover of 30 million bottles/year.
To quickly run through the history-James Borrough started Beefeater in Chelsea, West London in 1908. He was a skilled distiller, who was constantly experimenting with botanicals (ingredients) that go into making gin, he also always wrote about how his experiments fared (which I’m told are still there to see). He also had a great marketing idea and put his image on the bottle so it could be easily distinguished and purchased.
We were then taken through the whole process of how it is made with the definition of gin “neutral spirits flavoured with juniper berries”. These small purple berries grow in the wild, are harvested by hand and cannot be cultivated. Beefeater Gin is a totally handcrafted product. The core botanicals that go into making this are juniper berries, coriander seeds, lemon peel, Seville orange peel, liquorice , almond powder, angelica roots, angelica seeds and last but not the least orris seeds. To these core botanicals neutral spirit is added and left for 24 hours to soak in all the oils from the botanicals. Then the distillation process takes all of 7 hours. After this the middle stream of the now distilled product is used for what we popularly know as Beefeater (the first part being too weak and the last part being too heavy).
Then we had a gin tasting session between Beefeater, Gordons and Bombay Sapphire. Tim has already shared the botanicals of Beefeater with us but it seems Gordons is highly secretive of their botanicals and Tim had been trying for the last 5 years to unearth this secret, while the botanicals of Bombay sapphire are listed on the bottle itself. The unanimous result of the tasting-
Beefeater-One gets a mouthful feel, it has a medium to long finish, one can get the taste of juniper, liquorice , fruity, citrus notes. It is a more complex gin.
Gordons– One gets a lesser mouthful feel comparatively, it is earthy, tastes a bit sweet but there is no sugar added, less floral, can definitely taste a lot of angelica roots. It is a medium gin.
Bombay Sapphire-a definite white pepper taste, more aromas of neutral spirits, the finish is short on taste. It is a lighter gin in comparison.
We then got to taste 2 gin cocktails- gin with mint and lemon wedge and green snapper.
Green snapper was very similar to a bloody mary but without the tomato juice. It had mint, green coriander, pineapple juice and lemon juice all blended together and was really refreshing.
I would love to try some more lovely gin based cocktails in the near future. Here’s cheers to Gin!
– Rohini Ghosh
