Firecracker, the debut gin from new Lancaster based distillery, The Lancaster Spirits Company, has been presented with a Silver Medal in the prestigious Global Gin Masters Awards earlier this month. (01st December).
Chaired by The Spirits Business and a panel of leading spirit specialists, The Gin Masters is a blind-tasting competition judged by some of the finest palates in the industry, including leading distributors, educators and on-trade professionals.
Due to the popularity of the category, The Gin Masters competition is now held twice a year to find and reward the best gin brands on the world stage. In the first instalment, judged in June, more than 500 products were put to the taste test.
November's second instalment saw the panel work through around 125 bottlings, across 13 categories, including London Dry, Old Tom, Pink Gin, Flavoured Gin and Super Premium, with Firecracker collecting its Silver Medal in this category. During the judging process each entry is marked on appearance, aroma, palate, and overall balance.
Gerard Evans, the consultant distiller at the Lancaster Spirits Co, commented, "I am over the moon that we've received our first award for our Firecracker Gin. It's the first gin in our core range, which we've created completely from scratch, using a secret blend of wheat and rye grains, our two-hundred-year-old Lancastrian live yeast and water drawn from our own artesian well. The award-winning spirit we've created reflects our proud local heritage and displays a uniquely complex flavour profile making it a great option for a Gin & Tonic."
Phil Simpson, founder of the Lancaster Spirits Company said, "It's great news that our premium Firecracker Gin has been formally recognised as being a gin of high quality with an excellent flavour profile with a Silver Medal at the Global Spirit Masters 2022, and now sits alongside gins of national and international renown. It's a testament to every member of the team and their hard work over the past 18 months since we established the distillery. Working with them to create an original range of premium grain to glass spirits led by our Firecracker and our English Grain Vodka has been incredible."
About Firecracker Gin:
Firecracker Gin expresses the profiles of seventeen botanicals, each of which has been carefully selected and sourced across four continents. With a big personality and complex profile, Firecracker's bold earthy notes of evergreen, citrus zing, hints of exotic spices and freshly sawn timber come to the fore, to deliver a silky smooth, powerful gin with a long, satisfying finish – making for the perfect Gin & Tonic.
Firecracker Gin: 40% ABV - Available in 70cl bottle at a price of £38.00 and 50cl bottle at £29.00
About the Lancaster Spirits Company:
Housed alongside the home of multi-award-winning Lancaster Brewery, The Lancaster Spirits Company is a grain to glass distillery, utilising decades of brewing know-how and a painstaking distilling process, to produce premium quality, small-batch gin and vodka.
The distillery has taken an exceptionally unusual and challenging approach to creating their own base grain spirit, by distilling from their own specially concocted beer. After many dozens of test brews carried out over an eighteen-month development period, they've mastered the art. Using a secret blend of wheat and rye grains, a two-hundred-year-old Lancastrian live yeast and water drawn from an artesian well, the spirit has a proud local heritage and uniquely complex flavour profile.
Even the bottle has involved scrupulous thought and regard. The design is based on a 19th Century Lancaster based brewery (Yates & Jackson) beer bottle and then carefully modified to allow space for the label and etched with the distillery's name.
To produce a single drop of The Lancaster Spirits Company gin or vodka takes a minimum of five weeks of work. Painstaking, fastidious, complicated work, in proud classically Lancastrian style.
This unique, "Batch 001" release can be enjoyed now or saved as a collector's edition and is available to order online via: https://lancasterspirits.co.uk