Padstow Gin® Tales from the Barrel 70cl

Batch #002, distilled, aged and bottled in Padstow from Spring 2024 to Spring 2025.

Yes, barrel-aged gin is really an outlier. As you can imagine, it has somewhat unique characteristics that distinguish it from our more 'traditional' gins.

To set the scene, this is NOT a flavoured gin. It hasn't been infused with any extra botanicals or ingredients during distillation. This is our original recipe St George's Well gin, which we diverted off at bottling time into just one French Oak barrel coopered in the Burgundy region, to be aged for six months.

Ageing in oak brings a new complexity to the taste profile, by softening some of the zingly juniper and citrus notes while enhancing the floral profiles of bay and rosemary. This gentle 'tuning' of the profile and the introduction of what I can only describe as a creaminess that comes from the tannin and vanillin in the oak, has created a gin that is perfect for sipping over ice, like you would a single malt. And in a similar vein, we are bottling this lovely liquid at cask strength, which is currently exactly 47%abv although this may change very slightly by bottling day.

You can, of course, add a premium tonic for a longer drink, or craft one very cool barrel-aged Negroni. However you drink it, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

'Not every experiment yields good results, but with this particular number, I had a hunch - and an excellent pre-loved Pinot Noir barrel from the excellent Danbury Ridge winery in Essex. The higher abv pulls the flavour from the oak in a way that the lighter red wine cannot - and I'm astonished by the depth of flavour we have achieved. I think for us it is class-defining!'

David McWilliam
Head Distiller