Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you… That Boutique-y Gin Company is five-years-old so we’re marking the occasion by naming five of our favourite things about our juniper-loving friends.
A certain bottler and maker of brilliant gins is turning five today. With its commitment to creative creations, fun flavours, and the best labels around, That Boutique-y Gin Company (TBGC) has crafted many a delightful gin in such a short amount of time, including original bottlings as well as collaborations with some of the best distilleries in the business. And the world’s first independent gin bottler has been rewarded for its efforts with the odd medal along the way…
So, to celebrate we’re taking a look back at some of the highlights we’ve enjoyed from half a decade of TBGC. Happy Birthday guys, and here’s to another fab five years!
Starting as they meant to go on…
1. Kicking off with a killer gin
Collaborations with the likes of Bathtub Gin were part of the first 11 (eleven!) bottlings TBGC launched with all those years ago, but that selection also included its very own Cherry Gin. The ambition to create something you don’t see every day has never left the brand, neither has the commitment to make this beauty in the finest sloe gin tradition, using both sweet and sour Marasca cherries to create an expression that’s a knockout with cola. Who kicks off a brand with a cherry gin? These mavericks, that’s who.
So many great people along the way have been a part of the Boutique-y story
2. The spirit of collaboration
Hernö. Greensand Ridge. FEW Spirits. Salcombe Distilling Co. Farallon Gin. Conker Spirit. Whittaker’s Gin. Golden Moon. Old Young’s. Lizzie Ostrom. Blackwater. The New York Distilling Company. Kyrö Distillery. Renegade London Wine. Spirit Works. New Columbia Distillers. Gin Eva. Masons Distillery. Cooper King. Cotswolds. Crossbill. St. George Spirits. The Fifty Eight Gin Distillery. Chilgrove Spirits. Telser. Look. At. All. This. Teamwork! From the UK to California to Liechtenstein, TBGC has been across the globe and the spectrum of flavour to deliver countless expressions with some of the finest gin makers in the business. And we’re all the better for it.
This lot doesn’t mess around when it comes to flavour
3. All of that innovation without compromise
Advent Calendars, RTDs, a Fridge Tin. TBGC has never stopped pushing the boat out and trying new things, which means it’s constantly found itself at the beginning of emerging trends. Take its approach to flavoured gin. It’s a category so often derided for overly sweet and silly expressions. But when you’re creating gins like Oo-mami, Proper Pink, Yuzu, Cucamelon, Spit-Roasted Pineapple, and Strawberry and Balsamico then you’re part of the solution, not the problem. These are genuinely innovative products made without compromise. For example, in Strawberry and Balsamico, there’s actual Aceto di Balsamico tradizionale di Modena DOP, which is aged between 12 and 25 years in casks and costs over £1000 a litre as an ingredient. TBGC did not come to play.
Just look at these beauties
4. The best labels in the business
The illustrations on That Boutique-y Gin Company labels don’t grow on trees or juniper bushes. Artist Grace J Ward is the creative mind behind designs that include images and references you just won’t see anywhere else. What other gin has an army of squirrels aiming to get their paws on cobnuts on its label? Or beefy shark-men with machine guns? The graphic novel-style illustrations make TBGC’s bottles stand out and become collectables, and we never get bored of picking up one and appreciating all the detail.
5. That time they sent a product into space
How many gins made with botanicas that graced the final frontier can you name? When TBGC made Moonshot Gin it reached for the stars, sending juniper, coriander, cubeb pepper, fresh lemon peel, chamomile flowers, cardamom, dried bitter orange peel, cinnamon, liquorice root and angelica into the stratosphere at an altitude of at least 20km where they were exposed to extremely low pressures. It even used moon rock from a lunar meteorite as a botanical. The result was a gin that’s out of this world in more ways than one, and a permanent addition in the drinks cabinet of yours truly.
