Earlier this week, Made in Chelsea‘s Spencer Matthews was on hand at The Botanist to launch his new project, Clean Gin.
We’ve seen a number of spirit replacements, and low ABV gins hit the market. Seedlip, Hayman’s own Small Gin. At 1.2% ABV Clean Gin iss one of the lowest on the market, but still promises the same flavour profile – in fact the perfect serve is a G&T. I grabbed (not literally) Spencer for a chat to ask him more about it.
So, Spencer, where did the idea came from?
The idea came from when I changed my own relationship with alcohol – about 19 months ago. I was offered an an alcohol free G&T when I was about three months into sobriety and it blew my mind. I’d never thought of it as a thing, I’m referring to Seedlip by the way, and it wasn’t – I’m a big Seedlip fan, I like them very much, and it gave me all sorts of ideas of how to develop something a bit different, and play across all sorts of spirits categories and target things that are actually more ‘gin-ish’ than they did. Gin is predominantly juniper driven, as you know and I didn’t find their product to be juniper driven at all, and I thought it was an incredible way to kick things off. We set out to create the world’s first low alcohol gin – all sorts of reasons we can’t call it that per se. So with Clean Gin we’re trying to change the way people think about alcohol, people don’t like the term non-alcoholic, don’t like the term mocktail, it’s negative, it’s all a bit jokey, we think with clean living that clean drinking needed to be a thing.
So the ‘Clean’ is related to ‘clean eating’?
I’m not implying that gin is dirty, which a lot of people think I am. It’s like a Porsche versus a Porsche Turbo, you’re not implying a Porsche is slow, just saying one’s a Turbo. We’re clean in the sense that it’s more around ‘clean living’, healthy lifestyle than a clean liquid, which of course gin is.
Botanical wise, you’ve obviously got juniper, other than that?
Lots of juniper, orris root, cardamom, peppermint – we really set out to create a liquid that when you add tonic, really plays on your palette in the same way that gin does. So, it was an exciting journey, we did all sorts of stuff with rosemary, all sorts of stuff with cinnamon and stuff which didn’t really work, and in the process realised that some of the botanicals would work better with the rum that we’re doing – we’re doing a spiced rum which will be awesome, and I can’t wait for the launch of that. And it’s just great. Obviously it being low alcohol, we face a number of issues that gin or rum don’t face. So our product can go off, because it doesn’t have the alcohol content to help shelf life. It can split, it can flock, it can do a number of things that alcohol would prevent. We work with Mark Gamble at Union Distillers and I must have tasted 200 clean gin variants over the past 13 months and we’ve got to a place that we’re really happy with and when mixed traditionally, I believe really delivers that gin and tonic flavour that people lust for.
How much of the distillation process are you able to go into?
It’s a complicated one, and I’m not doing the distilling. I know that there are four separate processes to the final liquid. We end up effectively with a distillate which we expand from. We fill IBC containers full of the recipe and using the method that’s owned by the company, in order to go from a 3000 bottle brand to a mass produced brand, and we’re just understanding and riding that at the moment. Which is a challenge, you can make a couple of pints of beer at home, but if you had to make a couple of thousand cases it’s a totally different deal. We’ve been investing in all sorts of different machinery, all sorts of different kit and it’s really exciting. There’s an awful lot to do. Especially if we want to achieve something global, if we want to crack other countries, it’s complicated.
So you’ve got Clean Gin, a rum – anything else planned?
Keen to experiment with pink gin – we were going to do a French gin maybe. I think you want to stay away from being too poncey with what the liquid actually is, because it’s taste driven. It’s not as if it’s aged in a Scotch or whatever. This is flavour impact on your mouth, on your palette, so ultimately for me, whether the gin is English of French doesn’t really make a difference. What we would be interested in delivering is a dark spiced rum, maybe a different spiced rum, a Bourbon that’s really sweet for the Americas, the Clean Gin, a pink gin that’s maybe a bit more floral and we’re already keen to do a really interesting line of ready to drink products – both diet and normal across rum and gin for hopefully this summer.
What’s your favourite way to drink Clean Gin?
Well, I got shown up by Jasmine Hemsley came round and made me a Clean Gin cocktail with blood orange and fresh ginger and cardamom liqueur and honestly, it was just so impressive. It was a really humbling moment that someone has gone out of their way to create this clean cocktail using our product. Initially it was very much created just to be an alternative or replacement for gin in a G&T, you wouldn’t want to make a Martini with this, you wouldn’t want to drink it straight, it’s never going to deliver that alcoholic hit you’re going to get when you drink straight liquor, and to be honest, if you’re drinking straight liquor you probably won’t be ordering this. I just love mint and lemon, the Clean Gin and tonic delivers every time for me, makes feel like I’m drinking a gin and tonic, kind of takes the edge off my day, whether that be a placebo or not. You kind of feel this little buzz when you drink it, or I do anyway, and you feel safe in the knowledge that you’re not doing yourself any harm drinking it.
So, what’s it like? It’s actually pretty close to a G&T. Obviously easy drinking, the flavour profile has elements reminiscent of a bathtub gin, a softer, more haylike or floral flavour. And whether you watch Made in Chelsea or not (I admit, I don’t) t’s certainly on of the better ones I’ve sampled.
My biggest issue is probably with the name – clean anything implies that the food or drink has a moral value, which is doesn’t. Food is food and drink – alcoholic or not, is drink. But it is a good alternative if you’re reducing your alcohol intake.
I’m intrigued to see what comes of the rum, and the Bourbon and the hinted at ‘Tequila’. One to watch certainly.
