That Boutique-y Gin Company is here to bring you a whole host of new small batch gins from some of the world’s most exciting brands and distillers! Allow us to explain a little about our ethos and what you have to look forward to...
Well – it’s been some time coming, but we’re finally here. That Boutique-y Gin Company – sister company to the hugely successful That Boutique-y Whisky Company has finally launched, and boy, do we have some big shoes to step into.
It’s fair to say that this project has been on our minds for a fair while, and we wanted to take the time to explain the company’s ethos, and a bit more about the bottlings you’re going to see coming over the following months and years.
With the recent ‘gin boom’ showing absolutely no signs of abatement, the number of entrants into the market has been absolutely vast. Snap back 5 years to 2012, and there were probably no more than a few dozen gins available in most markets. Today in our home market (the UK) alone, there are over 1,200.
It's fair to say, however, that (with a few notable exceptions) most distilleries are putting out just one or two expressions of their gin, and that whilst they may have thousands or even millions of loyal fans and customers – the ability to put time, effort, and cash into the development, marketing, and distribution of new and exciting lines is severely restricted for all but the best-funded or most hyperactive of distilleries.
We got talking to several of our favourite distillers, and time after time heard the same story. The story about the super-exciting liquids that were either fully or partially developed, but hadn’t been released due to a lack of time to bring them to market, a lack of resources to develop different packaging, or concern about dilution of brand-message in an already-saturated market. The fact that these liquids were languishing in a black-hole of inability to get into our mouths made us sad as consumers – and it’s something that we wanted to fix.
And that’s exactly what we set out to do. We’re working with some of the world’s most exciting brands (both well-established, and new entrants) to both bring to market extant ideas, and to create new liquids from scratch. Some of the gins will be fascinating tweaks to the distillery’s normal recipe (maybe using a different citrus blend, or re-balancing and dialling up the botanical intensity to work better in more assertive cocktails), many will be taken directly from the extensive list of ‘things to try’ written on the notepad or blackboard of each and every distiller that’s ever lived, and some will be completely balls-out-of-the-bath experiments that we hope will resonate with our customers in the same way as they did with us.
For each of our limited-edition individually numbered batches of gin, there’ll be a blog post from our very own David T Smith in conjunction with the distiller, explaining the thinking behind each release, and sharing some of the fascinating story behind its production.
As with every ostensibly simple idea, the reality of getting to this stage has of course been a mammoth amount of effort from all involved, and we’d like to take the time to thank all of the distillers that had faith in the idea, and have helped us get to launch. Rest assured there are many, many more super-exciting gins already in the pipeline, you lucky, lucky lot.
Finally, if you’re a distiller reading this and wondering if you should get in touch – the answer is yes. Yes you should. Details are here:
Email: hi@thatboutiqueygincompany.com
Facebook /BoutiqueyGin
Twitter @BoutiqueyGin