There’s quite a fashion at the moment for gins featuring locally foraged botanicals. We are happy to say that Blackwater No.5 is not one of those.
You see, gin was always a product of the Empire – first the Dutch, then the British, bringing home a kaleidoscope of flavours from far flung places with strange sounding names.
So when looking for inspiration for Blackwater No.5 Gin, we didn’t look at the local hedgerow but rather into the local archives, where we dug into Ireland’s rich and overlooked maritime past.
In the Victorian period, White’s of Waterford was one of the largest importers of spices in the Kingdom. They also ran a ship yard and their vessels criss-crossed the globe importing tea from China and botanicals from the impossibly romantic ‘Spice Islands’. These botanicals were landed in Waterford, and then transported by steamer up the Blackwater River. They were landed at the pier in Cappoquin, barely a kilometre from the distillery and from there these precious goods were dispatched to the great Anglo-Irish houses in the valley.
Our gin then was designed from top to bottom using only the botanicals imported into Ireland by White’s of Waterford during the 19th century. In the dusty archives we found a treasure trove of botanicals once popular, but since overlooked. We distilled each and every one of these spices; some weren’t so great but two were spectacular and they lie at the heart of Blackwater No.5 Gin.
‘London Gin’ is the finest expression of gin. It’s a method of production that insists on real botanicals; we use twelve and after distillation the only thing we add is soft local water. What’s more, we make our gin in truly tiny batches.
