Gin: now a field-to-glass experience
As Lucy Holden explored the Chelsea Flower Show, she found unsusual plants popping up in cocktails
Of all the invitingly inflorescent gardens on display at Chelsea Flower Show, there was one that particularly piqued the imagination (and the thirst) of those wandering among the anthriscus.
It was the Silent Pool gin garden, blooming with blue Himalayan poppies, foxgloves and corydalis, as well as five of the botanicals found in the gin: camomile, lavender, rose, orris root and angelica.
Quick to locate the garden and walk the English oak boardwalk to its centre for a gin and tonic were Maureen Lipman, Georgia Toffolo Phillip Schofield, Piers Morgan and Ed Balls; and while it’s unclear whether Her Majesty herself detoured for a quick tipple, she is known to enjoy a gin and Dubonnet with ice and lemon before lunch, so she may have been tempted.
The gin boom has never been more buoyant. Last year 47million bottles of gin, worth £1.2billion, were served, according to the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, and the number of UK distilleries shot to 315, double the number five years ago.
So naturally a gin-themed garden went down a storm. David Neale, director of
Neale Richards garden design, was already a fan of Silent Pool, a gin local to his home in Surrey, and worked with them to design an arrangement that would echo the taste of its 24 botanicals.
“It’s a beautiful gin,” he says. “My wife and I started buying it and enjoying a gin and tonic at the end of the day a couple of years ago and the first thing you notice is the bottle – it’s a beautiful teal colour, which we tried to reflect in the planting of lots of blues and whites at Chelsea. The other amazing thing about it is that it uses water in the distilling process from the Silent Pool itself, a spring-fed lake at the foot of the North Downs, so we have pools here sprouting Iris fulva. “Then there are the 24 botanicals – some of them, such as the South African cassia bark, need a very hot climate to grow – but many can be grown easily in the UK. The Place To Grow category is all about creating a realistic garden with lots o of planting ideas people can take home hom with them, and some people still don’t know how many of t the ingredients in gin can be very easily grown, you just need to know where to plant them.”
Though, by defi definition, juniper- juniper-led, led, “gins are then constructed like perfumes,” pe explains Stuart Bale, head of innovati innovation at Silent Pool. “D “Distilleries might decide they’d like top notes of lemon verbe verbena, jasmine or ho honeysuckle, whic which can all be easil easily grown in hom home gardens. Base notes migh might include Japa Japanese knot knotweed, giant hogw hogweed, elder elderflower, fern or mu mushrooms, so thin think about your allo allotment, if you sur survived the waiting list.” The pop popularity of the Chelse Chelsea gin garden is part of an increasing trend for homemade “garden” cocktails. “It’s field-to-glass drinking,” Bale says. “The drinks world often lags behind the food world with trends but this is the equivalent of nose-to-tail dining, which Fergus Henderson heralded in the late Nineties.”
Try serving Harvey’s Bristol Cream with citrus zest, he suggests, or a mushroom (once brined) in a martini for an amazing savoury taste.
“Beetroot works brilliantly in vodka cocktails and gives petrichor and an amazing colour to any drink,” he adds.
Gardener Sarah Raven recommends dropping pretty, blue, edible anchusa azurea flowers into an ice-cube tray before filling with water to jazz-up a gin and tonic. And foraged and home-grown plants, flowers, fruits and vegetables are appearing in glamorous glasses everywhere. In London, Dandelyan, which won “world’s best bar” at last year’s Spirited Awards, recently launched a new menu called “The Modern Life of Plants”. Drinks include sloe and ground ivy, as well as catnip (“which has a spicy, herbal taste”), “creamy” potato syrup and vermouth distilled with pollen.
The bar’s founder, Ryan Chetiyawardana, says: “After you’ve worked out how to use conventional garden plants in drinks it’s great to try weirder ingredients and skew flavours for more imaginative cocktails.”
Silent Pool Gin Garden
50ml Silent Pool gin
25ml gewürztraminer Chopped strawberries Geranium
Stir the gin and wine together, then add a large sprig of geranium and as many strawberries as you like to each glass. Garnish with a slice of grapefruit.