Tirril Brewery has dabbled for some years making single malts based on our beer recipes, which has been fun and the current offer is made from the mash from our Golden Ale ‘Old Faithful’.
We stock the single malt, but have devoted our time over the past twelve months to making distinctly Cumbrian gins.
What has disappointed us has been the amount of mass produced almost synthetic gins, made by mixing alcohol and commercial flavourings, without any effort to distill or care of sourcing of ingredients.
We decided if we were going to get involved in gin that it would have to be both Cumbrian and also authentic.
Andrew at Solway Spirits, just north of the border, distills a base gin for us and then we hand pick all the fruit for the flavourings to make our own syrups, here at the brewery from either hedgerow foraged fruits or from the fruits that are abundant in the old farmhouse kitchen garden that is adjacent to the 200 year old stone barn in which we brew.
Andrew blends our syrups into the gins to produce our range of full strength 40% abv gins – only now available here in Cumbria in our customers bars and restaurants.
As we use whole fruit and do not wish to filter all the flavor out, our gins can be cloudy or hazy or even have elderflower petals in the bottles, this we feel is part of our gin’s authentic charm.
HEDGEROW GINS
- SLOE The most traditional flavoured gin, deep purple and very sweet, it can be drunk neat or with a mixer.
- ROSEHIP A super food with vastly more vitamin C pound for pound than oranges, an obvious part of a healthy diet ??
- BRAMBLE The classic hedgerow berries, prickly to pick, but giving a dark sweet flavoursome gin
- ELDERFLOWER AND HONEY Made with local elderflowers infused in a syrup made with honey from Borrowdale to make a light delicate gin.
- GOLDEN RASPBERRY We forage Golden Raspberries – once cultivated, but now run wild – on National Trust properties in the Lake District. They have limited season and appear in even more rare locations, so each year only allows for an incredibly limited number of bottles. Possibly one of the world’s rarest gins!
FARMHOUSE GINS
- RHUBARB Made from Rhubarb that has been growing adjacent to the brewery for as long as anyone in the village can remember. We now heap our used hops onto the veg garden, which just helps the rhubarb to flourish.
- RASPBERRY Alison has tended the raspberries in the farmhouse garden getting a huge crop this year, which obviously just had to be made into gin
- BONFIRE TOFFEE We are making bonfire toffee in our own kitchen which Andrew will work his magic on and have a limited edition bonfire toffee gin ready for Halloween and Bonfire Night.
- BOTANICAL A traditional dry gin, made using wild junipers foraged from around Lakeland. It is flavoured with botanicals including lovage from the kitchen garden, giving subtle celery and black pepper flavours.
