OUR HANDCRAFTED GIN IS A LABOUR OF LOVE
Our Wyrd Dry Gin is an extraordinarily smooth small-batch gin, handcrafted with passion in the heart of the New Forest.
A perfect blend of fine-grain spirit, pure New Forest spring water and the finest botanicals from around the world
FINEST INGREDIENTS
As an expert in blending flavours, Mark was passionate about putting together the ideal marriage of ingredients to make the perfect gin. He set about creating tiny batches, adapting his recipe each time until he had a ‘eureka moment’ and Wyrd Gin was born.
All our ingredients are hand-selected by Mark and the botanicals are carefully balanced to enhance our base of local New Forest spring water and British grain spirit.
Our core flavours come from juniper berries and coriander seed with earthy notes supplied by angelica and liquorice roots. The refreshing citrus flavours are provided by sweet orange, lemon and grapefruit peels, and cardamom, cassia and cubeb berries lend the spicy finish.
CRAFTING OUR GIN
Making our gin has been a real labour of love – it took us over a year of trialling and testing before we were finally happy with it! Sourcing great quality ingredients and balancing the flavours of all the botanicals really is an art.
The magic happens in our traditional Portuguese alembic copper still inside our New Forest distillery. Here we distil most of our botanicals together, but we also use the modern technique of vacuum distillation for the more delicate botanicals, to preserve their subtle flavours.
RELEASING THE FLAVOURS – MACERATING
We place our unique blend of botanicals into the still together with pure British grain spirit and crystal clear spring water drawn from the New Forest.
We let the ingredients sit and macerate for 15 hours allowing the botanicals to infuse in the liquid and bring out their fragrant flavours.
THE ART OF DISTILLATION
The distiller’s job is to ensure only the flavoursome part of the distilled spirit (known as the ‘hearts’) is drawn off, discarding the harsh ‘heads’ and the bitter ‘tails’. In order to do this, Mark has to keep smelling and tasting the different parts of the spirit as it boils, evaporates and condenses, timing it just right to make the cuts.
This job requires an excellent nose and finely tuned taste buds to ensure the end product is smooth, well-balanced and, above all, delicious!
TIME FOR A REST
After all that heating and condensing, the gin needs a rest (and so does Mark!) After around a week in a blending tank, the spirit is diluted to a bottling strength of 42% ABV with pure water before being left to rest again for another couple of weeks.
It is then filtered, bottled and labelled by hand before Mark signs each and every bottle to illustrate our small batch character.