Funnily enough, we never intended to use fresh oranges in our gin.
The orange peel we were playing with just didn’t work. It showed a candied, confectionary character that didn’t sit well with the other spices.
When Dr Klaus Hagmann (from CARL Artisan Stills) suggested we use fresh citrus, we were a little puzzled because we hadn’t heard of fresh anything being used in gin. The first distillation using fresh oranges was a revelation. The instant Mediterranean lift on our gin was the final piece of the puzzle we had been looking for.
We source oranges from various growers throughout the year: always organic and always delicious. Fresh oranges offer a softer citrus character that lifts all the spices to another level.
There are some differences in the intensity of the oils from one variety to another, so we slightly vary the volume of oranges throughout the season.
One of the bigger differences is in the varieties that have more pith or thicker skins. In these cases we tend to take a very ruthless tails cut because the pithy character is quite strong towards the end of the distillation, so the yield is a little smaller on those batches.
