Salcombe Gin

Over the Yardarm with Guy Venables
where Guy visits the Salcombe Distilling Company’s Gin School to learn how to make gin, properly, with a copper still, and botanicals… or you can just buy their own ‘Start Point’ brand

In a smartly converted boathouse on the banks of the creek sits the Salcombe Distilling Company. The most important thing they do here is make the excellent Salcombe Gin. The second most important thing is they teach you how to make your own.
I had made gin before. That’s what I thought. I’d steeped separate flavours in vodka and mixed ‘em up. However, once you get to making it with a proper pot-still you’re in the big boy’s league.
The Salcombe gin was inspired by a boat. The Salcombe Fruiter, a fast locally made boat with open cargo hatches that imported fruit and spices from the Med and West Indies.
This is where the gin gets its fresh grapefruit, lime and lemon edges. There’s also earth and pine and pepper and spice. The water is from Dartmoor and needs no softening. They use an old- fashioned approach known as the one shot method and distil their gin according to the ‘London Dry’ standard. It is very good gin. Balanced, refined but exciting.
We sat in a classroom each with our own mini copper still and mixed and bubbled and concocted using the hundreds of dried herbs and spices at hand. We were guided in our method by Howard and in our flavours by Jason, a botanist, chilli fanatic and a man who really knew his botanicals. These were each weighed using tiny micro scales and dropped into the pot. I was interested in seaweed which gives it an oiliness and a pleasant “mouthfeel.” The girl next to me was making what seemed like a gin rogan josh. Down the row someone was adding a lot of chilli. We were all having fun. It bubbled away while we kept a beady eye on the temperature. Eventually it poured through the condensing coil out into a measuring jug. We added water. Not too much.
We then named it, put our own labels on it popped it in a presentation box and with the little left over headed over to the bar and drank it with tonic. I then went home and told my friends. Three of them have now been on the course. Inspired further by the course, two of them have bought copper stills! I await the outcomes with a large polished glass.
Gin Making course £100 or £125 for two.
Salcombe Gin ‘Start Point’ £37.50
www.salcombegin.com