Scottish craft gin adds new strawberry line

Scottish craft distiller Gin Bothy has added a new strawberry gin to its seasonal range.

Gin Bothy launches Strawberry Gin

The new limited edition seasonal gin was launched at this week’s Foodies Festival in Edinburgh and is being sold online (RRP: £25/ 50cl).

Founder Kim Cameron said the region had “the perfect microclimate” for strawberries, with long hours of daylight and lots of rain allowing for slow ripening of the strawberries which helped intensify the flavour. The spirit used for the gin comes from Ogilvy Distillers in nearby Glamis.

The company was founded Cameron in 2013 to use excess fruit juice from her jam-making enterprise and now produces raspberry, blueberry, rhubarb, and sloe gins using soft fruit from Angus and Perthshire, as well as chilli and amaretto gins. Both of its seasonal winter skus, Mulled Gin and Gunshot Gin, which is infused with cinnamon, cloves and mixed spices, were awarded Great Taste Awards this month. It also recently launches an Original Gin Bothy, whose botanicals include heather, milk thistle, Scottish pine needles, hawthorn root and rosemary.

Total production is around 1,000 bottles a month – with around 400 bottles of Strawberry Gin produced a month, in 50-bottle batches, but Cameron is keep to keep the small-batch hand-bottled production and distribution in-house. The range is primarily sold through small farm shops, delis, restaurants and bars in Scotland, as well as food festivals and farmers markets, but she is currently in talks with a London retailer which would take Gin Bothy south of the border for the first time.

“The demand is there, but the smaller independents are better able to communication the story around the gin, which has a strong background,” a spokesman said.

Earlier this summer, the gin brand, which is based at its small distillery on a farm in Glenisla, Angus, was a drinks partner at golf tournament, the Senior Open Championships at Carnoustie.