BERTHA’S REVENGE IRISH MILK GIN
Like any good Irish tale, the story behind our wonderful Bertha’s Revenge Gin is a tapestry of good fortune, endeavour and passion. Funnily enough, our gin took about 10 months from conception to birth, not a dissimilar length of time to the average gestation period for a cow!
Like any good Irish tale, the story behind our wonderful Bertha’s Revenge Gin is a tapestry of good fortune, endeavour and passion. Funnily enough, our gin took about 10 months from conception to birth, not a dissimilar length of time to the average gestation period for a cow!
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Using whey alcohol from the local dairy farmers here in Cork, together with our own natural well water and an interesting mix of locally foraged and grown botanicals, we have hand-crafted a gin that highlights the character of Bertha in her prime.
INGREDIENTS Whey alcohol, spring water, juniper, coriander, bitter orange, grapefruit, sweet orange, childish enthusiasm, lemon, lime, liquorice, orris, angelica, laughter, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, cumin, almond, elderflower, Alexanders, love, sweet woodruff. TASTING NOTES Nose – Jaunty juniper leads, followed quickly by the spicy and warming notes of cardamon, cumin and sweet citrus. The complexity of Bertha is evident and enthralling. She demands to be tasted. Palate – our whey alcohol base comes to the fore on the palate. Like a conductor of an orchestra, she holds and releases the different notes to maximum effect. Effortlessly smooth from the start, sweet orange, coriander and peppery Alexanders are joined in a warming motherly caress of cumin, clove and cardamon. The generous nature of the spirit washes over the palate, finishing in a gentle spice-tinted heat that delivers a considered murmur of approval from your taste buds. BERTHA’S NAVY STRENGTH
We are delighted to introduce you to a new nautical member of our little herd Bertha’s Revenge Navy Strength Gin. We have raised the ABV to a lip-pursing 57.1%, and have shuffled the botanical blend slightly to accentuate one or two of the more pronounced flavor notes. The extra strength gives our merry crew of spices a megaphone through which to convey their message, which is as smooth and as well-balanced as you would expect from a cow riding at anchor. What is Navy Strength? Britain historically boasted the largest and most powerful navy in the world and during the Napoleonic wars, more than a quarter of the Royal Navy’s 17,000 men were Irish including including one of Justin’s ancestors, Vice-Admiral Sylverius Moriarty who was born in 1735 at Ballyferriter on the Dingle Peninsula in Co. Kerry. He was also one of the only Irish-speaking Vice-Admirals in the Royal Navy. Rum and gin were staples on-board Royal Navy ships and daily rations of rum were issued to the crews up to as recently as 1970. Prior to 1816 there was no accurate way to measure alcohol strength so a rule-of-thumb method was applied: the gunpowder was mixed together with the spirit to form a paste. If the spirit was over a certain strength, the powder would ignite, and if under, it would not. This method made sure the navy was not being swindled and not being sold watered-down hooch and more importantly ensured the alcohol-soaked gunpowder remained highly explosive. This was vital as the casks of spirit and gunpowder were usually stored in close proximity below decks and if the casks toppled over during a storm or during a raging battle and spilled their contents which in turn soaked the gunpowder, the gunpowder would still ignite. High-strength spirit at 57% was therefore what the navy demanded when buying spirits from its purveyors. |