ILoveGin‘s much-hyped gintern selection process reached its climax on Wednesday when eight of the original 5000 applicants joined the team at Portobello Road no.171‘s distillery in London, located at its namesake in Notting Hill. The two gin ventures had collaborated on a fun-packed day of gin-related creativity for us, with the pretext that this was indeed ultimately a job interview. This balance was struck perfectly, and I’m sure the other ginterns would agree that we quickly settled into the day and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It gave us the opportunity to see how ILoveGin review and select gins for its members, a chance to express our own love of gin, and was rounded off with a hands-on lesson held in ‘The Ginstitute‘ which itself culminated in the production of our very own unique bottle of gin each to take home. [This last segment is an experience open to the public and bookable online, I cannot recommend enough giving it a go next time you are in London]
Preparation for this day started three weeks ago. As soon as we were told Portobello Road No.171 were our host distillery I went out to go and find myself a bottle (Waitrose stock it, here in Jersey too). This really is a beautifully crafted gin, its most redeeming feature being its depth and persistence in flavour. No. 171 uses 9 classical botanicals (see flavour map below), first of which to arrive on the palate is a fresh, slightly bitter citrus burst from lemon and orange peel. In the middle is a punchy hit of juniper before a very long warm and spicy finish courtesy of Cassia bark (like cinnamon), nutmeg and Angelica. ILoveGin informed us we would be presenting a ‘signature serve’ on the day, so as homework for this I reluctantly sampled a few classic cocktails first, my favourite of these undoubtedly being The Negroni (Gin, Campari and sweet vermouth in equal parts). However, in the interest of doing something a bit more fun and expressive a Negroni wasn’t going to cut it. I decided very quickly I wanted to infuse the gin with something first, and after some thought, and a few more drinks, I landed on the flavours of carrot & rosemary.
Carrots play nicely into the hands of No. 171’s rooty profile, in particular angelica root with which it shares the same genetic family. They also bring a slightly sweet and nutty edge to bear. Rosemary is a nod to Portobello Road’s Juniper presence, but taking the mid-notes in a much more herby/vegetal direction. I represented this off-piste direction by pinning a flattering photo of my actual face onto the flavour map next to the other drink’s components.
As with distillation, rooty ingredients like carrots take much longer to impart their flavour (at least two weeks) so right away I set up a couple of jars with about 100g of grated organic Jersey carrots per 250ml. One week later I replaced the grated carrot with fresh carrot and shook the jar once or twice a day (see my previous article on ginfusion for an in-depth explanation on how it works). Finally, I ‘dip-dyed’ the rosemary for just one day, given it is a much stronger flavour relative to carrot. When strained, the drink possessed a beautiful orange hue and smelled fantastic. In serving this drink at Portobello road I really wanted to show off its subtle new carrot/vegetable patch flavour, as well as paying homage to existing ones already present in the gin. To achieve this called for a drink of great class and simplicity, one made famous by Ian Fleming’s 1953 Casino Royale: James Bond’s ‘The Vesper.’
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It’s at this point I’m going to mention the mini-catastrophe that took place en route to London late on Tuesday night. I had all the ingredients I needed for my perfect serve packed and checked in to the last flight to Gatwick on Tuesday night. This included the infusion that had taken two weeks to prepare, some Lillet blanc, a pink grapefruit for the garnish and even my own channel knife just in case.
Unfortunately, Sleazyjet felt they would send all of these things, as well as my clothes and essentials, to Belfast instead of Gatwick ((y)(y)(y)) I must have traveled to Gatwick from Jersey a thousand times and never had this ever happened to me. It meant I was then romping around Gatwick at 10pm filling out forms and searching frantically for my bag in the knowledge that the Gintern day was starting at 10am sharp the next morning. Despite multiple phone calls made to Jersey and Gatwick at 5.30am the next morning my bag was nowhere to be seen. It meant I had to head over to Portobello road in my clothes from the night before, a phone with next to no battery, and only my A2 flavour map I’d carried on as hand luggage, now almost entirely redundant given my ginfusion was nowhere to be seen!
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Anyway, if my ingredients had actually made it over to London, this would have been my perfect serve:
‘Carrot-top Vesper’
- 90ml Carrot and Rosemary infused Portobello road
- 30ml vodka (something smooth like Grey Goose if available)
- 15ml Lillet Blanc
- 3-4 dashes Angostura bitters
- Twist of grapefruit, to garnish.
Shake all ingredients except the grapefruit over ice until too cold to touch and strain into a chilled martini glass. Rub grapefruit twist around the rim of the glass before dropping it in.
The Lillet blanc boosts the citric notes as well as holding hands with our new vegetal friends carrots and rosemary. As for the bitters, I initially tried without it and it was kind of like a super tasty but ultimately under-seasoned soup. It just added a bit of salt to the rosemary/carrot, and pepper to Portobello road’s spicier elements Cassia and nutmeg for a bit more bite (as bitters so often does). What resulted was a wonderfully smooth and long tasting drink, which made it incredibly dangerous given the 130ml of pure alcohol per serving.
Alas, this drink never made it to Portobello road for ILoveGin and the other ginterns to try – I think I’m almost over it – but I still had to come up with something else (at 6 in the morning) to show off No. 171’s class, and it had to be something I knew there’d be ingredients ready for. I elected to make a slightly naughtier variation of my favourite serve the Negroni called a ‘Jasmine.’ It goes as follows:
‘Jasmine’
- 45ml Portobello Road gin
- 15ml Campari
- 15ml triple sec (eg. Cointreau)
- 20ml Lemon juice
- Sugar syrup to taste (between 0-15ml, I chose 0ml)
- Grapefruit or orange twist, to garnish
Shake all ingredients except the grapefruit over ice and double-strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with grapefruit/orange.
Triple sec and lemon juice give Portobello Road a huge and courageous citrus lift, and the fact that juniper and spice persist is testament to the versatility and depth of our host’s gin.
I was second of eight to pitch their perfect serve. One by one the other ginterns showcased theirs behind the bar, and there were no two drinks the same. Some focused on taste, others on presentation and others still on pure creative expression. Everyone put in a lot of effort and it showed, some truly brilliant drinks were served up, even if it was at 10 in the morning.
Whilst this was happening, other candidates were whittled off the boardroom to interview Paul, one of the core staff at Portobello Road. The purpose here was to see if we could determine if Portobello Road has what it takes to become a featured gin for the ILoveGin members. I had the chance at the end of our conversation to ask Paul a few extra questions:
What would you say is Portobello road’s sexiest or most defining quality?
I think what it is for me that is testament to the quality of our gin is how quickly we’ve established ourselves in the market. That only 6 years we’re launching into our 18th and 19th countries is something I’m certainly very proud of. In managing to break into five States in America and the Australian market we won the award for fastest growing gin in the World, which I think is just fantastic.
Is that down solely to the quality of the product?
In part yes, but it’s also credit to Jake (Jake Burger, founding member) who’s not here today because he ran a Ginstitute class late last night so he mightn’t come in ’til later this afternoon! We don’t see as much of him here but make no mistake he’s a fantastic guy and very influential in the industry and in the success of Portobello Road.
I know you like it served with Fevertree and a grapefruit garnish, but what other ways could our members enjoy Portobello Road? How, for instance, would you serve Portobello Road to The Queen?
For the Queen? Well downstairs we do serve a drink I know the Queen’s mother was very fond of called a ‘Gin and It‘ which is essentially gin and Italian vermouth; but I know the Queen herself shares a love for a wine-based aperitif called ‘Dubbonnet.’ So a couple of years ago we lauched a cocktail called the ‘Queen mother‘ which is a fantastic drink that calls for 25ml gin, 25ml Dubonnet, 20ml Aperol and 5 ml dark rum, say something like Myers’s rum. These are shaken over ice and then served in cocktail glass with a thin twist of orange and a small squeeze of lemon. It’s also rumored Prince Charles’ bodyguards have gin & tonic to hand at all times, but that is just a rumour!
How would you serve Portobello Road to someone like Donald Trump or Kanye West, you know, the last person you’d want to invite to your dinner party, fame aside?
Well it would definitely only be a single! I wouldn’t want them staying around too long. Maybe ‘a Tonic Bomb,’ which is a twist on the Jaeger bomb, so just drop the gin into a bit of tonic and then away you go – in and out.
And how about to yourself, on this here muggy Wednesday 17th May?
Yeah it’s pretty depressing outside and it’s the middle of May, we should really be having lovely sun. It was also my birthday last week…I think I’d go with one of my favourite cocktails the ‘Corpse Reviver no. 2‘
I know this one. There’s no holding back on alcohol content is there, pretty full-on committed after drinking that at midday aren’t you?
Definitely a drink for this sort time! One to revive the corpse after a heavy night, but yes too many too quickly and you’re very quickly a corpse once again!
It was a real pleasure chatting to Paul, and it would be he who ran our class in the Ginstitute classroom downstairs, nestled among the distillers to cap off the day. Armed with glasses and notepads we sampled distillates of individual gin components ranging from pink pepper, to asparagus, to Yorkshire tea. Paul laid down some general guideline and talked us through what each botanical could offer to our gin before he asked us each to conjure up our own gin recipe.
Starting from a classic base comprised of Juniper, Coriander seeds, Angelica root and Orris root (like the pizza base of gin), he asked us to choose up to eight additional botanicals. I went overall for quite a peppery flavour, doubling up on juniper before adding orange peel, white pepper, cubeb pepper, liquorice root and nutmeg. I was really happy with the result, and the best bit about this genius idea is that each person’s gin recipe is recorded in their database against a unique ID number meaning you can rebuy the exact gin again and again from the ginstitute site. If you are a close friend/family member reading, this will be your birthday/wedding gift for the next ten years or so.
Once we had bottled and sealed our gins it was time to head upstairs for one more photo before parting ways. I learned so much about the work ILoveGin do behind the scenes, as well as what it takes to distill a gin as exceptional as Portobello Road. It was also lovely to meet the other gintern candidates, who I know enjoyed the day as much as I did. Before heading off to search for my missing bag, I popped next door to the Portobello Star and ordered myself the Vesper Easyjet denied me, after which I felt nicely loosened up for a day out and about in London. Thanks again to ILoveGin for organising this day, and for a bag of goodies we received on the day (mine included the Dry Ginuary box). As one of the candidates, Lauren H, remarked on the day, I think ILoveGin and its members are certainly in safe hands with whoever emerges as the main gintern from this bunch of gin enthusiasts.
In my next post I’ll look to experiment further with my now surplus Carrot and Rosemary infused Portobello Road, should I manage to avoid drinking the rest at the time of writing on what is a particularly stunning Saturday evening.
A Gin Obsessed Ginger 