Ableforth's Bathtub Gin - Old Tom 50cl

Product Information

If we take the sweetened bathtub gin above (which is probably a worst-case) it would contain 283 calories per 125ml. THE DISTILLERY – Boatyard is an award-wining distillery located inside an old boatyard on the banks of Lough Erne in the North West of Ireland. The first legal distillery built in County Fermanagh in 130 years, Boatyard is a genuinely different distillery – innovative, open, transparent, truly craft, obsessed with quality and passionate about distillation. In his 1937 book “ Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ‘Em,” Stanley Clisby Arthur claims the name comes from England when an old tom cat fell into a vat of gin. Distiller Joseph Boord claimed the name came from a man named Tom who had put in a good many years at Boord’s distillery. Old Tom Gin –the simplest, widely accepted definition for what an Old Tom Gin is simply a gin which has sweetening added after distillation*. Usually Old Tom gins feature a malty, character-filled base spirit which hasn’t been distilled to the point of being neutral, and often, but not necessarily by definition, have been rested in a barrel, usually for only as long as it needed to travel from distillery to pub.

The thing with Bathtub Gin is that you make it exclusively by adding botanicals AFTER distillation to a cheap. Producers add them to a cheap grain of alcohol and let them infuse for a while. To keep things covert, pubs would provide gin through metal tubing that ran to the outside of the building. These gin tubes could be found by looking out for cat-shaped plaques mounted on the exterior of the pubs. Individuals would then be served a measure of gin through the tube by putting money in a slot under the cat’s paw. Rhubarb Old Tom can be enjoyed with lemon tonic, Indian tonic, ginger ale, lemonade, or soda water. For a special touch, add Rhubarb Old Tom to fizz. As it is a very fruity and zingy gin, it can be paired with almost anything. Garnish with orange peel or berries. The end result is that the two main players with modern Old Tom Gin have two very different properties. And while dozens of Old Tom Gins have entered the market in the several years since Hayman’s and Ransom forged the pathway, they’re just as diverse.Whether the spirit was infused in a bathtub or not, bathtubs were involved at one point. There's no way that people produced the actual base spirit in bathtubs, however, it's likely that they used bathtubs to infuse a spirit with juniper berries and other fragrant botanicals. OLD TOM - Boatyard Old Tom gin is naturally sweetened; we take our Double Gin and age it in first fill PX sherry barrels for 4 month. We then add a touch of local Fermanagh honey for natural sweetness After 12 hours, strain your gin by placing the muslin in the sieve and covering the jug. Pour out the liquid mixture, and at this point, you will see that the spirit will be cloudy, and that’s okay. Step 6 Distillation at home without a license is illegal in most countries so making a true gin simply isn’t possible for most of us. That’s why making a bathtub gin is such a fun way to make your own alcohol without breaking any laws! Does Bathtub Gin Go bad? Bathtub gin refers to an alcohol-based drink mixture produced at home or anywhere using non-professional methods. The name was invented in the 1920s during the alcohol prohibition. Bathtub gin was considered bootleg and was poor in quality, but it remained popular due to its availability.

The idea behind aging the gin is that we wanted to re-create what would have happened 150 years ago,” Seestedt said. “Generally, spirits weren’t immediately bottled like they are today. Any time the gin would have been shipped it would have been kept in cooperage for some amount of time.” This product is wrapped in brown paper and solely named after the category. The spirit is produced by Ableforth Spirits, who did a beautiful job with this compound gin. Tasting notes Before the prohibition, gin was a popular spirit in America, preferred mainly by the upper class. It was consumed more than vodka and rum. After the ban took effect, gin became scarce and was no longer available. However, there was still a demand for it. And so, bootleggers, who were also called speakeasies at that time, met the demand by producing a drink that approximated gin infusing cheap grain alcohol with juniper berries as flavoring. Being alcohol-based which makes for an excellent natural preservative, bathtub gin, if stored away from the sun unopened, would likely last for years. You can even be aged in casks for a smoother, rich, and more mellow body. In general, Bathtub Gin is considered inferior to other gin types. That doesn't mean all brands or bottles of Bathtub or Compound Gin are bad, but the overall quality of this gin style is not as good.Step 5: Once you are satisfied, filter the botanicals with a sieve and do final filtering with the coffee filter. Enjoy! Bathtub Gin– owing to the fact that legally gin is simply “juniper flavored spirit,” one can make a gin by infusing/macerating, or alternatively “cold compounding” juniper berries and other botanicals in a spirit. Add Juniper berries, Coriander Seeds, and Angelica root in the jar with the vodka. Swirl around to mix. Step 4 The difference between Bathtub Gin and Gin is that for making Bathtub Gin, you add the botanicals to an already distilled spirit. For traditional gin, the infusion of botanicals happens during distillation.

Prior to that lunch, we’d pretty much just been focusing on brandies and eau de vies,” Seestedt said. “I’d been thinking about trying my hand at a gin for while, and that was when David suggested an Old Tom.” It's also worth mentioning that these homemade gin creations were often not only of questionable taste but even posed a health risk. Poorly produced alcohol contains toxins, which can cause all sorts of unwanted side effects and consequences ranging from severe headaches to losing eyesight to death. Is Bathtub Gin good?Genever is a Dutch spirit usually made from a malt spirit base (like whiskey!), flavored with juniper and a variety of additional botanicals (like gin!). As it became wildly popular in England during the Anglo-Dutch wars of the 1660s, fans of the stuff eventually attempted to recreate it for themselves. This is how Old Tom and London dry styles of gin came to be. Both styles are understood to have emerged around the 18th century. Where Does the Name “Old Tom” Come From? Justthetonic Bathtub gin I am trying lots of gins at the minute. I think I chose this one fir the cute bottle. Unfortunately this is nit to my taste and I don’t like this gin at all. It's all natural - Rhubarb Old Tom is hand-crafted on the Scottish Orkney Islands in micro batches using many local and Scottish botanicals by small family run business, Orkney Gin Company. We don't use any flavourings, colourings or presevatives.

but even this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Some suggest that naturally sweet botanicals, such as licorice, are the source of sweetness in an Old Tom Gin. This would suggest that many gins which brand themselves as simply gin, might be better called Old Tom because of the botanical heaviness which affords a certain sweetness. Thus, infusing a gin with at least one botanical during distillation (e.g., juniper) makes it a distilled gin, not a compound or bathtub gin. Bathtub Gin, Compound Gin, and Cold Compounded Gin Thankfully for Bathtub Gin, the quality of the ingredients are greatly superior. Here the gin is infused with six botanicals: juniper, coriander, orange peel, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom, and the length of the compounding period is controlled entirely by periodic sampling at the Master of Malt HQ in Tunbridge Wells. The final spirit is bottled at 43.3% ABV and has a slight hue caused by the infusion process. Old Tom gin is a type of gin that is typically sweet, while still maintaining an emphasis on a juniper-driven profile. Where London dry gin is prohibited from including added sugars and flavoring components post-distillation, Old Tom embraces the sweeter side of our favorite evergreen-based spirit. Using pestle and mortar, grind together juniper berries, cardamom pod, and coriander seeds. Do not grind them to a pulp. Just enough to release flavor. Step 3

TASTING NOTES – Boatyard Old Tom gin has notes of candied lemon peel, vanilla and cinnamon spice, with a silky, orange finish. It is slightly sweeter than a London Dry style. The Old Tom Gin in the Ableforth series is quite an interesting proposition too. It is almost the very definition of what an Old Tom style gin should be. Sweet on the nose from the liquorice root, with a sugary mouth feel and a lingering finish. It has a slightly earthy warmth but the sugary element seems to bring out the citrusy, juniper note. While it seems to have less character than Hayman’s Old Tom when tasting the two side by side, it’s easier to see what an “ Old Tom” style gin is when tasting the professor’s. We would recommend it to any gin lover looking to find a bench mark for what Old Tom gin’s are all about. BATHTUB NAVY STRENGTH GIN TO TASTE… Consequently, these often were of inferior quality, and one had to mask their harsh bite and unpleasant flavors. The term “bathtub gin” often conjures up glamorous images of flapper girls, speakeasies and the Roaring Twenties, however the precise origin of how the term “bathtub gin” came about is hard to categorically state. From what we can tell it could have its origins during Prohibition, but the exact reason as to where the name came from is unclear. Some say bootleggers used to create spirits in their home using stills and then watered the liquid down to drinking strength with tap water, but had to use the taps in the bathtub as the large bottles wouldn’t fit in the sink. Others say that the term comes from the bootleggers actually using their bathtubs to infuse the spirit with various fruits and botanicals (often needed to cover up the repulsive taste of the poor quality spirit itself). In reality, both of these are likely to have occurred and the “ bathtub gin” name has since been closely associated with poor quality, cheap gin from that era. BATHTUB GIN TO TASTE… Most brands producing compound gin do not hide their production method. So by looking at the label, you will find the desired information 99% of the time. Also, because not all Bathtub Gin is of low quality, a few brands aim to give this type a better image: Best Bathtub Gins