Having recently travelled from Brighton to remain in the beautiful South Sands Hotel at Salcombe, we decided we wanted to explore the region to discover the hidden treasures of this gorgeous seaside town. It was afterward we came across the Salcombe Gin and their wonderful Gin making college.

Salcombe Gin are new players in the Gin marketplace, (they found in July 2016) however they’ve quickly taken the market by storm through the exceptional quality and determination to create a gin which not only tastes great but looks fantastic throughout their luxury branding. Just recently they have been given the gold award at the internationally renowned World Drinks Awards in addition to winning two awards for World’s Greatest Gin in the Technical Excellence and Premium Design subcategories that March.

The Gin School is the most recent advancement to the new, launching in March this year and becoming the first school in the Southwest of England. The faculty runs three days per week on a Wednesday (14:00-17:00), Friday (14:00-17:00) and Saturday that has two sessions of 09:30 — 12:30 or 14:00 — 17:00. They promise to offer you the greatest experience for both consumer and trade fans of the spirit.

We attended the Friday’s session where production manager Jason Nickels, who’s in charge of the distilling process greeted us and shared his expertise in the Salcombe Gin School throughout our time. He took us through to the first room and revealed their newly installed state of the art, 450- litre copper still “provident” — The King or Queen of all distilleries. Here he clarified the process in the front of the masterpiece and explains that this can produce up to 600 bottles of Salcombe gin each batch. We were taken down the stairs after around one hour of us and learning questioning Jason about the procedure.

Walking to the area was just like walking into a science lesson back. 10-mini aluminum “provident’s” spread out along tall work stations joined together to make a U shape around the coach. Our workstation consisted of scales, measuring jug, mixing bowls, a worksheet and a heater to the mini-still.

Jason explained the process of creating our gin and got us. He explained that the mini-stills have a spirit which will blend that we on selected to make a exceptional gin for us to bottle up and take home. We were informed that gin can contain anything from 4-47 botanicals and handed out a worksheet of over 100 botanicals for us to pick from.

We began to look to decide the type of Gin we’d like to create. The worksheet included notes to direct us on the amounts required and the must haves in gin — juniper berries are crucial (around 25g per a 75cl bottle) Other ingredients are recommended depending on the mix that you are aiming for.

We aimed to produce a unique and delicious gin that could be blended nicely with a barbecue; with this in mind we moved over to the libary of ingredients which were kept in Jars located in shelves into the side of this room and collected the components that are relegated to make our gin. We began by incorporating the juniper berries accompanied by cucumber, elderflower, vanilla and rose. Jason advised that we included a hint of chilli to boost the effect and came over to ensure that our mix headed in the perfect direction.

We tipped all of our ingredients into the still, placed the lid on top and warmed in the heat setting number 4 for the process to commence. This procedure can take 30 minutes to the gin about to slowly drip into your jug. Whilst this is taking place, how they change drastically through the procedure and you can place your finger under the drip tasting the tastes. This was also the perfect time for people to order yet another ‘Salcombe and tonic’ and see how the other participants distilling went and see how different their creations were to ours.

Once the procedure was complete, we added pure water to cut the gin, reducing the strength from approximately 79 percent to the recommended strength of 43 or 44 percent — Ours came in at just 43.9 percent when examined. We bottled the gin into a 70cl bottle (Leaving enough spare for them to mix our gin at the bar), attached the personalised label that we generated and put within their exclusive Gin school wooden presentation box.

How did it taste? Is Mash gin (the title of our gin) going to go globally and given the best gin of 2017? Well I would not go that far but I have to say I was rather impressed. The barman made. I liked every sip and would it be created by me ? Definitely!

Be sure you visit Salcombe to create your very own Gin Now…

Salcombe Gin School
https://www.salcombegin.com/
The Boathouse,
28 Island Street,
Salcombe,
Devon,
TQ8 8DP