Cocktail Hour: Scilly Spirit Island Gin

We have written these blogs so they can be enjoyed independently or in sequence. If you want to start at the beginning, click here: https://www.havehusbandwilltravel.com/adventures-1/2020/8/3/a-week-in-the-isles-of-scilly

For a series of islands covering a combined total land mass of just over six square miles, the Scillies certainly make a lot of gin.

Of course, we had to try them all. Purely in the spirit of research of course, so we could relay our findings with confidence. When we go on a trip we always have the blog in mind and I’m sure you, loyal readers, appreciate the efforts we go to to leave no stone unturned (or gin bottle upturned).

Our favourite of the lot was Island Gin.

We first encountered bottles of Island Gin within thirty minutes of stepping foot on St Mary’s, the largest of the islands and the one we were staying on. Having survived a “rough” crossing, the last thing we wanted was an alcoholic drink. That and it was barely even lunchtime (although that doesn’t always stop us when we’re on holiday).

But the bottles looked so enticing: a broad base, a little like the rum bottles you see in pirate movies, but gently tapered inwards, not outwards. And then, halfway up, a distinctively thin neck which tapered outwards, leading to a sturdy looking wooden topper. The glass is an exquisite turquoise colour, the exact shade of the waters that lap the shores of the Scillies.

I have it in front of me now as a I type, even though the bottle was, alas, emptied several days ago. I just can’t bear to put it in the recyclying. The bottle itself is a work of art and, although we didn’t know this at the time, it has won several awards for design. It takes inspiration from the Bishop Rock lighthouse on the South-West tip of the Scillies, built in 1858 (you may recognise if from a BBC ident).

But we’ve been conned by clever packaging before. And the proliferation of gin in the last decade or so has led to many unremarkable gins having their mediocrity masked with pretty bottles and labels. Would Island Gin be another case of style over substance?

Unfortunately, right at that moment, even if our queasy stomachs were up for tasting Island Gin, we didn’t have the chance to find out. We were staring at the turquoise-hued bottles through the window of a shop that was closed. A pane of glass separated us from the object of our affections, like Spock and Kirk in Star Trek II, or Clarice and Hannibal in The Silence of The Lambs. (Just to be clear, in that latter analogy, Clarice is the gin and we’re the deranged psychopaths, okay?)

Although most businesses have re-opened on the Scillies, a small number remain closed due to Covid-19. But all was not lost because alongside the bottles was a sign with a phone number. Within a few rings I was through to the man who makes it: Arthur. A couple of minutes later I had placed my order for a bottle, along with a couple of locally-made tonic waters. Payment was painess: I received a message to my phone with a link to Paypal. My order would be delivered the day afterwards to my hotel. He offered to drop it around that afternoon but we were in no hurry, still being moderately affected by seasickness.

The next day we took our first journey over to Tresco. When we got back, we excitedly asked at reception if we’d received a package and were told it was already in our room.

Although we’d ordered tonic water to go with it, all mixers should be used with the utmost caution, especially with a premium gin. We always want our first taste of a new gin to be unadorned. Neat. The only thing that can be added is large ice. So I nipped back down to reception and asked for some glasses with ice. They were only too happy to oblige.

A few minutes later we had a our first taste of Island Gin. Neat, with only ice and the garnishes provided by Scilly Spirit themselves: fresh kaffir leaves and dried orange slices.

So how did it taste?

I’ve written extensively, on this website and others, about what I do and don’t like in a gin. My golden rule of thumb is: if you can taste the juniper then you’re on to a winner. And in Island Gin, boy can you taste the juniper! The other predominant note is pepper. Why pepper? Well, in 1665 a ship carrying pepper from Java was wrecked on the Scillies and the survivors were rescued by the local oarsmen. That’s the official line anyway. Surely the main reason is because they taste incredible together. We’ve both love to sprinkle the surface of our Martinis with fresh cracked pepper: it’s an under-appreciated garnish, but here it’s one of the six main botanicals.

The overall flavour profile is simultaneously robust and complex. Brawny but sophisticated. Urbane but not afraid to get stuck in with whatever physical labour needs doing. If James Bond were a real person, we suspect he would be asking for it in his drinks.

In fact, as we sipped our gin in the comfort of our hotel room, watching the sun start to fall behind the horizon, we both wondered what it would be like as a Martini. We made it our mission for that week to find a bar that would be able to make some (dry, stirred). When we did succeed we were right: it is an excellent Martini gin.

On evening in our hotel room we eventually relented and doused it with a little tonic (never more than a 2:1 tonic water:gin ratio) and that tasted excellent too, although we preferred it without. Less is definitely more when it comes to a superb gin like this one.

No wonder it’s already won six major international awards despite being little more than a year old. And it is made right there, in the Scillies.

As it happens, we found exactly where it was made quite by accident on our last day before we had to get back on the boat to the mainland. Prior to Covid, the Scilly Spirit distillery (in the Old Town of St Mary’s) organised tours of the distillery and even offered to take people to ‘Gin School’ - now that’s an learning experience I think we can all get on board with. On the curriculum: creating your own gin recipe. We’ve done similar things before and enjoyed them immensely. Next time we’re in the Scilly Isles, we hope Gin School has reopened and we can take our education to the next level.

In the meantime, I find myself on the Scilly Spirit website, about to place my order for several bottles. Writing this has made me somewhat eager (desperate) for an Island Gin Martini. There’s a fun video on their Instagram showing their latest batch of Island Gin deliveries leaving the Scillies by plane, shooting off the runway we actually walked across when we were doing our circuit of the St Mary’s coastline. Those planes carry precious cargo, to be sure, and they need to fly carefully. Even so, if they could fly just a little bit faster than usual after I’ve placed my order that would be superb.

All images are our own except for the photograph of the Bishop Rock lighthouse which is from the Scilly Spirit website. The lighthouse is too far away from the land to get a decent picture. This was our best effort, on the day we visited St Agnes: