Premium dry gin, crafted and bottled in Lanarkshire.
Shoogle Gin’s citrus-forward flavour profile means it’s as good to drink neat as it is with tonic water or in a cocktail.
Made in batches of 200 bottles with a botanical base of juniper, coriander seed, angelica root, orange and cardamom blended with more peculiar ingredients like kumquat, baobab, tonka bean and pink peppercorn. A total of eleven botanicals are used to distil this unique Scottish gin.
Shoogle Gin’s creators decided on producing gin after travelling around Scotland visiting other gin makers at festivals, markets and distillery events. Their passion was contagious and before long they were hooked on the idea. Added to that, as a family they could never agree on one gin that we all liked. Making their own gave them the chance to input into something together as a family. While they always planned to launch a gin, the pandemic brought it to the top of their list. Partly because they were fed up watching Netflix and doing Zoom pub quizzes, but also because it was something to keep them motivated while being confined together during lockdown for extended periods of time.
How Shoogle was crafted.
Armed with some basic distillation equipment, a rectifiers licence and a family preference for a juniper, citrus and spicy gin, the family set about experimenting with a number of botanical ingredients to determine flavour profiles using different techniques. Hundreds of variations and blends later, they settled on the core botanical mix for their ideal gin. With our botanical mix fixed, they started exploring ways to produce gin on a small scale in readiness for selling.
They knew there were two main routes to market: either building their own distillery or working with an established distillery they could trust.
Choosing an established distiller.
Feeling that it was both time-consuming and potentially cost-prohibitive to build their own facility straight away, particularly given the marketplace during the pandemic, they decided to work initially with an established distiller. They met with Lawrence at Inspirited, a local distiller who was delighted to work with them. Using his facilities and equipment, Lawrence helped Shoogle adapt their recipe to scale up for his still and, most importantly, kept them right in terms of licensing and production protocols.
Shoogle wanted to retain control and were involved throughout the production process, bottling and packaging of the gin at every stage. Reaching out to other experts in branding and packaging, printing, health systems and licensing, Shoogle found a pathway to making a gin that they are proud to bring to the market.
Tasting notes.
Shoogle Gin presents itself as a sweet citrus forward gin with a pepper spice backdrop. The juniper and kumquat appear on the nose at first, luring you in with a hint of tangerine before giving way to traces of cinnamon, almond and spicy pink peppercorn. On the palette, the initial citrus sweetness melts into the piney juniper before the warming flavours of cassia, tonka bean and cardamom level things out a little, in preparation for the more earthy notes of angelica root and the final pepper spice hit from the pink peppercorn.