Summer Hydro Garden Gin

What was the concept behind the Hydro Garden Gin?

We wanted to think about quintessential summer flavours for this gin, and to be able to celebrate the rich history of the Peebles Hydro as well. The original plan for this Summer Release is to be an homage to the natural world and the cultivated gardens that have been a feature of the Hydro for so long. The front of the Hydro has seen lawn tennis courts come and go, turned into beautiful rose gardens, and now we have a botanical garden designed to showcase the ingredients of the 1881 gins.

A Botanical Background

Gorse is everywhere in Scotland in May/June, and taking a lunchtime walk around the Hydro, you can smell the vanilla and coconut scents of the flowers wafting over the breeze. We decided that Gorse would be an interesting flavour concept to add to our portfolio, as it has a lot of history and provenance in the local area. 

Elderflower is a classic summer flavour, it seemed obvious for us to include it in our Summer Release. It grows wild on the Peebles Hydro Estate, but you can also find it in the gardens too. The fresh fragrance adds a lovely taste to our gin, and the underlying pear notes really tie together the floral flavours. 

Many of our botanicals can be found naturally in our estate here at Peebles Hydro. However we decided to go with some rose petals from the cultivated gardens. Roses are a celebration of summer weather, and our roses bloom in the botanical garden where the original rose garden was situated.

Harvesting the gorse proved tricky. We took a walk up Venlaw Hill towards our spring, Shieldgreen, hoping to forage as we went. We didn’t anticipate quite how prickly the bushes are, so we had sore hands that day! Overall, it was a nice chance to re-immerse ourselves in the inspiration for our core botanicals. 

The teams background on botanicals

Lauren - Holds a degree in Geography, so she's always had an interest in the natural world. Spent a lot of time outdoors growing up, so has learnt to appreciate what’s around us! Because of this, she has a keen passion to pair up botanicals, and to plan for the flavours they impart on our gins.

Dean - Spent a lot of time working in cocktail bars while completing his studies, so drink pairings and flavour combinations are something that are always circling in his head. It’s really fun being able to experiment with new botanicals, as you can develop and enhance flavours through the distilling process that aren’t accessible to the world of bartending.

 If you want to be one of the first to try our Hydro Garden Gin you can buy it here