Some years ago, a friend gave me my first gin and tonic. I’d mark that as the beginning of my love affair with gin. Gin is such a variable spirit. Each one tastes distinctly different and the reason for that is how varied the ingredients can be. If you’re interested in trying out something new, here’s a list of the five gins on the shelf currently at Mitchell Harris that I love. Maybe one of these will spark your curiosity. I like to pair any of the below with tonic or with a serve of bitter lemon, as pictured.
1. Melbourne Gin Company Dry Gin
Melbourne Gin Company does a dry gin which they describe as hand crafted, batch distilled and non chill filtered. There are eleven botanicals in it including grapefruit peel, rosemary, macadamia, sandalwood, honey lemon myrtle and organic naval orange. All of which are locally sourced. Not just that, lemon myrtle is an Australian spice so it helps make the dry gin distinctly Australian.
2. Dodd’s Gin
Dodd’s Gin hails from London. They say that using their proprietary distillation method they distill the lion’s share of their organic ingredients in ‘Christina’, a traditional 140-litre copper albumin, but reserve the more delicate botanicals for their state-of-the-art cold vacuum still, ‘Little Albion’. The botanicals include Angelica, fresh lime peel, bay laurel, red raspberry leaf and London honey. Honey, as everyone knows, can have its flavour drastically altered by the location the bees source the pollen. What a way to make the gin taste like London.
3. Four Pillars Rare Dry Gin
Four Pillars’ Rare Dry Gin is their offering of the classic. Along with usual ingredients of a dry gin, they use both Australian lemon myrtle and Tasmanian pepperberry leaf. So it is a classic dry gin, but it’s making its own statement. And that’s no secret. This gin has been awarded three double gold medals at international competitions in New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong.
4. Poor Tom’s Dry Gin
Poor Tom’s Dry Gin is the product of 10 botanicals which include fresh green apple, native strawberry gum leaf and chamomile. Strawberry gum is another native Australian botanical which, like the lemon myrtle and raspberry leaf used in the other gins mentioned, has a flavour that’s distinct. The gin is ‘delicate, fresh and floral’. They recommend serving with a strawberry, which I suspect would help bring out the fruity flavour of the strawberry gum.
5. The West Winds ‘The Broadside’ Navy Strength Gin
The West Winds ‘The Broadside’ is MH’s Navy Strength Gin offering. They used to stock the Four Pillars, which was my fave until I tasted this one. Navy strength gin comes, obviously, from when gin was taken aboard ships in the navy. If it was stored near the gunpowder and leaked, the gin had to be high enough alcohol volume that the if the gunpowder was soaked by the gin, the powder would still ignite. This used to be tested, back in the day, by mixing gunpowder with the gin and then lighting it. If the spirit caught fire and burned it was ‘proofed’ meaning it had high enough alcohol volume to burn steadily and not ruin the powder. So this gin is more powerful and aggressive than any of the others on the shelf, as is suggested by the name. A ‘broadside’ is a battle manoeuvre where a warship fires a close range barrage from every gun along the side of the hull. If you’ve watched the old Hornblower TV series before, you will have seen the move in action. There’s a nod to the Navy in the recipe, as it includes sea parsley and Margaret River sea salt. They even suggest it’s the first gin in the world made using seawater. It’s personally my favourite gin of all time. I’m drinking it in these pictures.
Today’s outfit is inspired by my love of Dolce and Gabbana summer collections. I’ve been wanting to do a shoot at MH under their yellow and white umbrellas for such a long time and yellow for me is a colour of summer. As soon as the warm weather hit, I knew I had to get there and take these shots. This dress I bought when I worked for Review many moons ago and I haven’t decided if I want to keep it yet. It’s nice, but I’m undecided. Maybe if it had pockets I’d find it hard to part with it.
Dress: Review
Bag: Laura Ashley
Shoes: Modcloth
Location: Mitchell Harris
Pics: Liv from Scarves and Art
– L
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