By Monica Jones
We know how much our readers love local history. We suspect one or two of you might enjoy the odd gin too! And as we like bringing you articles you enjoy, this is for you.
There is a new gin on the scene. Hampton Court Gin was born out of lockdown inspiration. You may well have seen them at the recent Sunbury Regatta in fact.
Simon Marjoram was walking his dog along the towpath, thinking about how life had changed. His role marketing brands in the travel, drinks and sports world had taken a huge hit during the pandemic. The light bulb moment came and Simon decided to leverage his expertise and contacts to create his own brand. Hampton Court Gin would bring to-gether local history and bring a new experi-ence to the market. Simon knew how to make it happen. Determined to create something with inherent authenticity, he turned to histo-ry, researching herbs, spices and traditions which would have featured in the time of Henry VIII.
Only one year on and his two gins are already feted by the drinks industry and expert tasters. Six Wives won Gold in the Global Gin Mas-ters in July 2022. (It had already won silver just after launch a year earlier.) That in itself is sensational. But to add to the glory, Si-mon’s other brand ‘Lord of Misrule’ was crowned Gin Master 2022. A Gin Master is the gin which is selected by a body of master gin tasters in a blind tasting of 900 gins. (Yes, just imagine!) It is an outstanding accolade.
A little more about the gins themselves; Six Wives features 6 botanicals which would have been found in the gardens of the palace, or imported to spice up Henry’s legendary feasts: Orange was introduced to court by Katherine of Aragon from her native Spain. Other botanicals are thyme (grown by Cardi-nal Wolesey), juniper, bitter almond and Cu-beb berries from Java, together with grains of paradise from West Africa. Rather than the average 1-2 x distillation, Six Wives is dis-tilled 22 times, giving it an incredibly smooth and deeply aromatic finish. The mark of a good gin is you can drink it neat. This one definitely satisfies that criteria. (Well, I had to do some research for the article!) The recom-mendation is to serve with a slice of orange and a sprig of singed thyme or just over ice.
Lord of Misrule bears the mischievous name of the person tasked with naughtiness and mayhem at court feasts. This Gin Master con-tains quince, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon, mul-berry, ginger, grains of paradise, honey, juni-per and bitter almond. We have not sampled this one ourselves, but the award speaks for it. It is a winner!
Simon recommends drinking his gins with a simple tonic. Lord of Misrule also works with ginger ale and a shard of cinnamon.
There are plans afoot for a spiced rum, as well as a pink gin, so watch this space. We have a feeling you will be seeing a lot of Hampton Court Gin at local events. If you want to pur-chase a bottle, you can do so online at hamp-toncourtgin.com.