As part of my favourite gin bar’s promotion of their Gin of Month, The Oliver Conquest holds a FREE gin tasting once a month.
This month the only day I had to break the clean eating challenge was to taste Ferdinand’s new Quince gin liqueur.
The Ferdinand family – original gin with 30 botanticals on the left (which Gin Club with a Reading Problem tasted last November) and on the right the Quince Gin Liqueur.
It’s very important that this isn’t called a gin…. under EU regulations gin has to be a minimum of 37.5% alcohol and this comes in at 30% – so stronger than most liqueurs but definitely not ‘gin’ strength.
Mislabelling on the bottle held up the Quince liqueur from making it over from Germany in time for the original tasting date the previous week!
As ‘Gin of the Month’ the Quince gin is on special offer for a G&T or just gin and mixer.
We got to try it neat, in a G&T and as a prosecco cocktail.
But first things first!
Tasting it neat:
I thought it had a sweet herbal aroma, similar to Turkish delight, which thankfully I like!
The taste was unsurprisingly sweet and perfumed, the rose and lavender botanticals in the gin creating a liquid Turkish delight.
It’s made like a sloe gin – the quince fruit is macerated in the Ferdinand’s gin and Riesling grapes are also added.
With Tonic:
The tonic water made the drink light and refreshing, however the Quince lacked the depth of flavour to fully shine with the tonic – I preferred it neat, you could drink it over ice on a hot day quite easily as a digestif.
As a prosecco cocktail:
This was a take on a French 75 – the Quince softens the prosecco flavour, so this was well balanced and lifted by the addition of a sweet ripe strawberry, a nice summer’s evening drink.
Hmm strawberries and Quince!
There was a whole range of cocktails and they were 2-4-1 (there are promotions on for most of the gin tastings)
We were intrigued by the canapé selection and trying the cheese with the liqueur…
As anticipated the neat Quince liqueur went very well with the blue cheese, whereas the lighter G&T and sweeter prosecco cocktail went well with the smoked salmon.
After the free tasting was complete Gin Club with a Reading Problem decided to try some of the 2-4-1 cocktails.
We got the Blood Orange Gimlet and the Ginger Peach.
I wasn’t convinced by the Blood Orange Gimlet – its replaced the lime cordial/juice with Blood Orange and added the Ferdinand’s Saar ‘Regular ‘ Gin – I much prefer a more standard Gimlet with lots of lime goodness.
However the Ginger Peach, which included ginger ale and Ferdinand’s peach bitters, was really good, balancing out the sweetness, creating a refreshing and easy to drink cocktail!
The bottles lined up at the end of the evening 🙂
If you are interested in attending the next free gin tastings, then follow The Oliver Conquest on Twitter and email them to reserve a spot – I’ll see you there!
Next up:
May – Tuesday 4th Martin Millers, gin masterclass & tasting at 7pm in the upstairs bar
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