This post feels like a little bit of a ‘go hard or go home’ piece, because instead of one, or two, or maybe three spirits, this features eleven. Yep, ELEVEN different spirits – the entire range from The Sweet Potato Spirit Company.
So let’s start at the beginning. The Sweet Potato Spirit Company began life as an importer of sweet potatoes – unfortunately our climate doesn’t like this kind of spud, and so they import them from Scott Farms into the UK. But whilst they (and I) love them as they are (or as fries, wedges, mash, crisps etc) they started wondering what else they could do with them. Given that you can make alcohol from almost anything (so long as it has sugar/starch) a little idea was born.
So, using their sweet potatoes, they now produce a range of spirits. They’re distilled in alembic copper pot stills, which only adds to the soft mouthfeel of the spirit. It’s really quite impressive the amount of vanilla sweetness that comes through from the vodka alone, and every addition they make to their spirits, is natural. No added flavourings – the orange gin liqueur uses oranges, the raspberry liqueur uses raspberries. They’re very proud of the spirits they’ve developed using natural ingredients.
So enough waffle from me. Let’s get tasting – we’ve a lot to get through!
We’ll start with the neat spirit. Sweet Potato Vodka: Sweet vanilla on the nose. Same on the palate. Lots of soft round vanilla flavour, no bite, just the soft warmth of the spirit warming you from the inside out.
Sweet Potato London Dry Gin: This does what it says on the bottle, it’s a proper gin. Big waft of juniper and citrus from the glass. No messing about here. Mouthfeel is really soft and syrupy, Taste is full of juniper, citrus and earthy angelica notes. Good classic style London Dry.
As a G&T more earthy and green notes come out, but it’s still got that good strong hit of citrus and juniper. If you like a classic G&T, you’ll love this.
Spiced Rum – now this is made a little differently. A rum needs to feature sugar cane or molasses to be a rum, and the Sweet Potato Spirit Company have combined both this, and their own spirit and spices to create a spiced rum. Vanilla, lots of it! Mouthfeel again is soft round and syrup. The spices come through – cinnamon, ginger, lots of toffee and caramel, and the finish is a long lingering vanilla toffee note, that just keeps going.
From the higher ABV spirits, to the slightly lower, with the gin liqueurs. As a quick explanation, to be a gin, a spirit needs to be 37.5% and above. Anything below that is either a gin liqueur, or a ‘gin spirit drink’. These liqueurs sit higher in ABV than most at 25%, and use their London Dry Gin as a base.
Orange Gin Liqueur: The nose is really soft. Almost like Terry’s chocolate orange, without the chocolate. The palate is soft, sweet, and juicy, a little sherbetty on the tip of your tongue. Far too easy to dip into for another sip.
Raspberry Gin Liqueur: Soft and fruity, almost powdery. The gin comes through stronger on this one than the orange, still taking a back seat to the fruit, but it’s another juicy fruit flavour that comes through.
Plum Gin Liqueur: Nose is all gin with hints of stoned fruit, but this one in general seems a bit more secretive on the nose. Palate is much more forthcoming. Juniper backbone again, soft, sweet, plum front and centre. Lingers nicely. Kind of makes me want to splash some in a crumble.
Lavender Gin Liqueur: Gin and hints of florals on the nose – the lavender is more delicate than you expect, meaning there’s sweet gin, the vanilla notes from the sweet potato, then the lavender kicks in, all soft and powdery. There’s a nice slightly higher acidity finish to it, kind of sherbetty.
And finally, onto the moonshines.
As with the other spirits, the original moonshine sits at a higher ABV than the flavours (40% versus 22%). The latter are real sweeties that play on the vanilla flavour and texture of the spirit.
Moonshine: Again, the soft syrupy mouthfeel, but this is a little spikier, not surprising given the ABV. Still hints of vanilla, fruit and caramel – the latter lingering.
Toffee Apple Moonshine: Big hits of caramel and toffee on the nose, the apple kicks in on the palate, it’s like a soft toffee laden apple pie, vanilla caramel lingers for a long time afterwards.
Pink Marshmallow Moonshine: Sherbet – the nose is just like opening a packet of Love Hearts or Refreshers. The palate is the same. It’s like drinking pink Refreshers.
Chocolate Moonshine with Chilli: The chocolate hits first, milk chocolatey, slight hints of hazelnut on the nose. On the palate there’s milk chocolate, almost Nutella-y notes linger, a hint of a kick at the back of the palette with some soft green vegetal flavours. Like it’s fellow spirits, lingers long after you’ve sipped.
The range of spirits created from a humble sweet potato are pretty impressive and yes, not all of them are my cup of tea, but I can easily see the soft sherbet flavours of some, and the big vanilla notes of others working beautifully in cocktails – and the London Dry Gin, is definitely that.
Who knew spuds could be so much fun?
These samples were sent to me free of charge for review purposes.