Aberdeenshire Foraged Gin

It’s called this because it’s made, by us, in Aberdeenshire, from bits of Aberdeenshire and it is gin.

It takes a year to make our gin.

Gin is easy eh, just slap a bunch of dry old stuff into a still and boom, gin…

Well we take a somewhat different approach.
It takes a year to forage and grow for our gin. Then six weeks of resting after distillation to allow the aromatic oils to relax and the flavour to develop.

This is not the easy way. This is detailed, intelligent and highly intricate distilling to create a gin with incredible complexity and texture.

It’s why our gin is found in Michelin starred restaurants and continues to win multiple medals and awards.

A year of Aberdeenshire in your bottle

April – 2 weeks to tap the birch trees as the sap rises
May – Picking beech leaves as they emerge and zing with fresh lemon flavours.
Planting Parsnips
June – Picking rhubarb
July – August – Collecting bee pollen from our own hives
October – November – Harvesting parsnips
December – Bare root planting juniper
All year – foraging for wood sorrel and looking after our bees.

We became bee keepers to make this gin. The bees are our best foragers and as well as providing us with local Aberdeenshire bee pollen to distill in our gin, help with pollination of the trees, flowers and grasses around us.

Cheers to the bees.

Tasting Notes

A modern dry Scottish gin. Packed full of juniper, waves of citrus, floral and woodland notes, with a hint of petrichor.

“Like sookin’ sherbet lemons, dipped in beeswax, while sitting in a scots pine forest after the rain”
Andrew

“Tastes like gin, but more betterer”
Chris

Gin with Texture

Distilled slowly in a dumpy wee pot still, we can carry over all the rich botanical oils into the spirit. This creates a luxurious, silky gin, that coats your mouth with each sip and builds flavour.

There are easier ways to make gin, but we cut no corners in our detailed processes to retain this texture and freshness.

The still has been modified to hold our own design of copper mesh botanical basket, to keep the fresh botanicals out of the boiling bowl and retain the vibrancy of our Aberdeenshire botanicals.

Botanicals

“Forage what we can, grow what we can’t and only buy what we cannot grow or forage sustainably”
Andrew

“Free ingredients are the best ingredients”
Chris

Scan yer Dram

To show you how much Aberdeenshire is each bottle, we geotag the grown and foraged ingredients using what3words. If the scan the QR code on the back of the bottle you can see all of this batch specific data. Maybe, one day, you might come to visit the birch tree that was tapped for the sap in your bottle!

Click here for What 3 Word locations of our foraged and grown botanicals

The Pretty Pretty Bottle

Back in the day, we hand etched each of the bottles. To continue to attempt this would be laughable, so we didn’t. 
Because you’re maybe going to buy this from someone else, you’re that generous, we’ve made it look special so the person you’ve bought this for better say thank you.

Full Botanical List

What – Where – Form – Process – Flavour

Juniper – 95% Italian purchased – 5% foraged locally from a secret location (not GPS tagged for these beauties, they need to be protected) – Dry/fresh – Steep – Pine/resin

Coriander – French – Purchased – Dry – Steep – Spice

Angelica Root -Belgian – Purchased – Dry – Steep – Sweet aniseed

Orris Root – Italian – Purchased – Powdered – Steep – Floral/sherbert

Birch Sap – Foraged – Steep – Woody/mineral/caramel

Parsnip – Grown – Steep – Herbal/earthy/spice

Rhubarb – Foraged/grown – Steep – Sweet/sour

Beech Leaves – Foraged – Basket – Citrus/petrichor

Wood Sorrel – Foraged – Basket – Citrus/woodland

Bee Pollen – French – Purchased for now but locally from mid 2020 – Floral/honey/perfume

Lemon – Purchased – Location seasonally dependent – Fresh zest – Basket – eh lemon, obviously

Grapefruit – Purchased – As above – Fresh Zest and flesh – Basket low citrus/bitter

Serving Suggestion

There are none, we insist you drink this however you see fit, do what you like and let us know how you get on. We’re not going to come up with some random or unimaginative tonic/garnish combination driven by a commercial arrangement. We enjoy ours with a smug sense of cynicism.

0.2% more betterer than Navy Strength

UPDATE – Our LBD GIN – Latitude Strength , joined the line up in March 2021. Distilled at 57.2° North, bottled at 57.2%abv. All the good things about LBD GIN turned up to 11. A creamy texture and tongue spanking botanicals mean this gin makes the perfect luxurious martini. Ideal for when you wan the gin to stand out in a cocktail and coat your mouth with each sip.

 

 

Well done, you read all the way to the bottom. You deserve another cute LBD pic to celebrate. If by some masochistic reason you desire any more detail please get in touch and we will relish the geek chat. Banksy was the original Little Brown Dog, she passed away in 2022 aged 15 but her legacy lives on. Winnie the cocker spaniel joined the team in 2020 and Peedie bounced into the distillery in 2023 and has been causing chaos since.

SLÀINTE

Find the full and incredibly wordy origin story for our Aberdeenshire Foraged gin archived here