Payne notes that Beefeater Pink Strawberry is inspired by Beefeater’s founder James Burrough's creative curiosity. “A pharmacist by trade before becoming a distiller, Burrough's wonderful inventions included raspberry gin, cherry brandy, British Brandy, [and more],” he explains. “Beefeater continues to embrace Burrough’s passion for colliding quality craftsmanship with experimentation and has created this natural strawberry gin for the new generation of drinkers.” Paye recommends using Beefeater Pink Strawberry to craft The Strawberry B&T by combining one part Beefeater Pink Strawberry with three parts of tonic over ice with fresh strawberries.

A couple years later, there’s sweet cinnamon cake and pink pepper on the nose. Creamy and vanilla tinged, it’s absolutely endearing. It’s perhaps my favorite nose in all of the world of spirits. It’s light on juniper; however, there’s just something so captivating and so unusual about it. The first time I nosed this gin, I fell in love. I’m still in love all these years later. But as a gin critic, it’s worth pointing out that you may be surprised to find out this is a gin if you stopped at the nose. Cathouse Pink Pepper Gin builds on it with an infusion of hibiscus and pink peppercorn. Tasting Notes But anyway, if you’re not afraid, come closer. The Tonka Bean is a beautiful flavor that imparts a captivating combination of vanilla, marzipan, caramel, dark honey and cinnamon bark.

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Region: England | ABV: 41.4% | Tasting Notes: Strawberry, Orange blossom, Rose water, Pink peppercorn Another contentious (at least in the United States) botanical in this gin is the Tonka Bean. It’s currently still banned stateside for a couple of reasons. The official one being that the beans from this South American tree contain a large quantity of coumarin (generally <3% of essential oil of bean by volume). The more probably reason for the ban of Tonka Beans specifically might be that it was a common adulterant used to deceive customers who thought they were buying vanilla. From a 1906 government report from the state of Connecticut, “The common adulterants of vanilla extract are tonka bean extract…tonka beans are much cheaper than vanilla beans and have a ranker flavor due to coumarin.” Fears of so-called “Mexican Vanilla” endures to this day, despite Mexico being one of the places vanilla grows naturally. Sometimes, though not always. While some pink gins can be overly sweet, a well-balanced pink gin will be more floral-driven and herbal than its cloying counterparts. Seek out well-made expressions from small distillers to dive into the world of delicious, well-made craft gins. Inspired by the Mediterranean flavors and overall joie de vivre of the South of France, Salcombe’s ‘Rosé Sainte Marie’ pink gin is distilled and crafted with a variety of thoughtful botanicals, including Macedonian juniper, angelica, and strawberries. The gin’s natural pink hue is obtained by macerating clear gin with unsweetened red fruits. No sugars, colorings, or artificial flavors are added. Expect flavors of strawberry, orange blossom, rose water, and pink peppercorn to jump from the gin’s smooth palate. Salcombe’s Rosé Sainte Marie Gin is also the only pink gin to win a double gold medal at San Francisco’s World Spirits Competition in 2020. The gin gets its name from the famous lighthouse at the Old Port entrance in Marseille, where workers could regularly be seen loading citrus, fruits, and other herbs onto boats headed to the ports of England.

In general, I don’t find a ton of change between my 2015 tasting notes and my 2017 tasting notes. This is not to suggest that a gin can’t change; however, in this case I just don’t see a ton of flux. It’s just as good today as when I first opened it, save some of the powerful pink peppercorn and coumarin top notes that were extraordinarily intense. Overall When I was in college, I studied Urban Planning. My senior year studio was in Newark, a mysterious place a PATH trip outside of New York— a place where millennials retired to have kids or live in sterile skyscrapers on the edge of the Hudson. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I just didn’t know Newark. The Ironbound neighborhoodod was a beautiful mess of diverse cultures, great food, interesting architecture— and now home of All Points West Distillery, makers of Cathouse Gin and Cathouse Pink Pepper Gin.

Cocktails

Fig trees grow abundantly all over France – adorning the edges of vineyards, sporadically appearing in the wild and taking pride of place in private gardens. At the start of springtime, fig trees plump their leaves with an aromatic sap; becoming richly green in colour, whilst wafting the deliciously heavy and sweet aromas of the sun-roasted leaf. Simply put, pink gin is made by macerating botanicals or fruit post-distillation with an otherwise colorless gin to obtain its signature pink hue. To translate this aroma into flavour, we harvest the fig leaves during the brief period where they are at their most aromatic. They’re then air dried, lightly roasted by hand and finally transformed into this bright liqueur after adding just the two other aromatic ingredients, and a small amount of cane sugar to balance the sweetness.

Now a nonagenarian, Vera has always been her own harshest critic. She worries (as only a grandmother can) that the cake isn’t quite as good as the last one, and she apologises repeatedly for her self-perceived failure. She’s wrong on each occasion of course, but the ritual of apology is as much a part of the Chocolate Cake as the cup of tea that accompanies the first slice. Covert liqueur was born from a desire to bring the fragrant warmth and complexity of three ingredients together in a chord of liquid harmony. Using just fig leaves, spring honey and cognac we capture a flavour in essence which is at once evocative, suave and richly perfumed. This Batch is dedicated to Bob’s Nan, Vera. And more specifically, her Chocolate Cake, which is officially ranked (in the family at least) as the No.1 Sponge in the World. Cathouse Gin aims to be a “mid-Atlantic” style gin, which aims to bring the botanical-forward approach of American gin distillers and blend it with the standard of London Dry Gin production. The palate begins of Cathouse Pink Pepper Gin is far more than a single-note spirit. In fact, the flavor evolves and goes through maybe four distinct phases of flavor.

As we mentioned above, Audemus Spirits says their Pink Pepper Gin changes with time. Let me take an excerpt from my book GIN: The Art and Craft of the Artisan Revival to share what I said about Pink Pepper’s taste in early 2015 when I wrote it: Since he was a child, no visit to his Nan was complete without an entire cake having been prepared. For longer stays, two cakes are required. The matriarch of the family, Vera keeps the secrets of her recipe close to her chest, and nobody else knows exactly how she manages to make the sponges so light, or the icing just the right balance between the bitterness of the cocoa, and the sweetness of the chocolate. But she manages perfection every time.

Pink Peppercorn is in vogue. It’s certainly one of the hot botanicals in 2018 and 2019; however, don’t write Cathouse as a hopping on the bandwagon. The Hibiscus adds uniqueness and the underlying botanicals are bold and balanced.Poured from the bottle, the nose absolutely screams pink peppercorn. It’s rich, creamy, unctuous with facets of fresh grated white peppercorns and rose flavored marzipan. It smells decadent and almost like a dessert right from the bottle. Pink Pepper Gin is Audemus Spirits’ signature creation. An incredible melange of unusual gin botanicals. They’re each handled individually and distilled separately. The base spirit is a neutral grain and the namesake pink peppercorn is among three botanicals that are vacuum distilled at low temperatures (juniper and cardamom being the other two). There’s also some secret botanicals in the mix as well.