It’s time I dipped my toe into writing up a tasting. Decided I’m going to call these tastings rather than review since they’re just my thoughts on a gin and I don’t feel quite experienced enough to call it an actual review yet! Since it’s the first, I thought it only right that I start with something local, and relatively new to the market, and so here we are with Betty’s Gin.
Betty’s Gin was launched back in February by Martyn and Karen, a husband and wife team, from their newly opened Heart of Suffolk Distillery in Bacton, Suffolk, and named for Karen’s mother. Sadly, I didn’t make it down for the opening since I already had tickets to the London Gin Festival (timing), but popped in the week after and heard the queues had lasted all day! Well worth popping in to see them for a chat if you’re interested in how the gin came to be.
Neat in the glass, the first thing to hit my nose was the anise, which came through quite strongly along with the Juniper. Given a little time to sit, the anise mellows out a bit and lets more of the citrus through from the orange. Tasting, in contrast to the nose, the orange seems to come through most strongly, while still not overpowering anything, leading into the anise again and leaving a nice oily mouthfeel which I assume is attributed to the almonds.
Interestingly, adding a splash of tonic seems to switch the initial nose and taste. The citrus comes through more strongly when you smell it, but upon tasting the tonic really brings the anise flavour to to the fore, which then mellows off into the orange. I’m generally a big fan of all things anise, so this really works for me, again, without overpowering all the other flavours. A little extra orange works really well if you want to bring the citrus out more, and they also recommend some pink peppercorns to add a touch more spice if you want a different serve.
Delicious first gin from Heart of Suffolk, can’t wait to see what they might come up with later this year in terms of some limited edition gins they’ve been talking about. If you happen to be near Bacton in Suffolk, the distillery is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday (you can find the details HERE), and also buy directly from them if you want.
Everything else about them you can find at https://heartofsuffolkdistillery.co.uk/
Great first tasting notes. I’ll look forward to more.