The one with the still porn….
This post has been a looooong time coming. In fact the Cooper King Distillery images refer to a visit to York back in March, where I also visited Skosh.
You see the visit was two fold. Visit Skosh for lunch, and then head to Cooper King Distillery for a little still ogling and to try their gins. And then things went a little bit wonky. Knowing I had to travel from York to London, I wanted to buy gins for review there and then, but I’d have had to carry them all the way to London. Then as it turned out, in the wind and the rain to by Air BnB. And then all day at Eroticon, before heading back to the train station and back to Manchester.
So I figured I’d buy them online.
And then the Spiced Gin, which I adore, went out of stock. So in between availability and the availability of my gin budget has meant I’ve had to be super patient. But now, now I have my grubby little paws on three bottles of gin, and some still porn for you to ogle.
Cooper King Distillery is based just outside York. It’s long interested me not only because they’re looking to bring whisky to Yorkshire (more on that later), but much like Brindle Distillery in Lancashire, they’re a distillery built around sustainability.
Rather than throwing your bottle in the recycling, you can get it refilled at the distillery (with a 15% discount).
Like Mondays Organic, they’re a member of the 1% For the Planet organisation, investing in environmental and community projects. In their case, their partner charity is the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust, and every bottle of gin enables them to help plan 1 square metre of woodland.
They use sustainable products on site at the distillery (right down to the loo roll) and their electricity is supplied by a green supplier too. And add to that the on site hives for the honey, water collection and composting.
Phew.
Over to the process. The gins are produced using vacuum distillation. But what catches your eye as you walk into the distillery, is this stunning sight.
Glorious. This is a Tasmanian still, imported by Cooper King for their whisky. And as someone who loves a pretty still, this is an absolute stunner. And Tasmania is where everything started for Abbie and Chris, the couple behind Cooper King.
They were visiting distilleries for a whisky blog for friends back home, and kind of fell in love with the process, the people, and the ethos. They brought that interest and passion home, and using the name of Lieutenant Charles Cooper King (Chris’s great great grandfather), built a distillery of their own.
In this image, you can just about make out the rotovap used for gin distillation, whilst the whisky still, with it’s gently tarnishing copper is in the front. It’s enough to make the science geek in me sigh with pleasure.
You can visit the distillery, as we did, every Saturday, 10am – 6pm. You can just pop by for a visit, or book on one of the distillery tours which run at 2pm and 4pm. Which we’d definitely recommend.
But enough about the distillery. Let’s dive into the gins!
We’ll begin with the signature gin. The full botanical list is rather long. Juniper, coriander, angelica, lemongrass, lavender, honey, cubeb, cardamom, lemongrass and fennel. Each is macerated separately, before being distilled in groups according to the properties of the botanical – different temperatures, and lengths of process. Finally, they’re blended together and a little of their new make whisky spirit is added to the gin. Meaning that it gets the pot still sweetness that gives it a deliciously rounded mouthfeel.
Neat, the nose is warm, and you can feel a bite of pepper and pine. The palate is rich, green, piney, with pepper and spice. It bites a little, so I wouldn’t particularly drink it neat. But it’s fabulous in a G&T.
Speaking of which. In a G&T, the nose has spice, citrus, and pine. The palate has soft juniper cuts across the tongue, followed by citrus, green herbal notes, and more fresh pepper and spice at the finish.
They’ve recently released a Herbal Gin, which I didn’t get to try at the distillery itself. Alongside some of the botanicals of the original, such as juniper and lemongrass, they’ve added fresh basil leaf and cloves to create something rather different.
Neat, there’s an oiliness on the nose, juniper, spice citrus and pepper. It’s much much softer than the signature gin. And that’s the same on the palate. Everything is softer than the signature, the wave of juniper, the bite of citrus, the spice finish. It’s gentler, cleaner, and very easy drinking.
In a G&T it has a soft roundness to the nose. Still juniper and coriander, but gentler, more powdery, a little floral spice note from the cloves. And again on the palate, it’s much gentler. Soft lemongrass citrus, gentle herbals, and powdery spice. Soft, easy moreish.
Finally, we come to something really rather special. Their collaboration with Skosh Restaurant. This features botanicals including smoked black cardamom, nori, mandarin and Szechuan peppercorn.
Neat the nose is smoky with oily citrus and pine. A bite of pepper. The palate has an oily mouth feel, a good bite of spice and smoke, anise.
In the G&T, the nose has soft smoke, citrus, cardamom and star anise notes. Then the palate again is smoke, juniper, star anise and a little pepper at the finish. This batch doesn’t seem quite as smoky as the one I had in March, but still, I think it worth the wait.
Cooper King is well worth a visit, and especially so now they’re in the process of batching their whisky. I must admit, I’m very tempted by the Founders club.
I might have to save up a little more for my gin budget.
