PUDDINGSTONE DISTILLERY GIN ARCHIVE
Retired gins, housed in this gin archive, are discontinued or limited edition gins no longer in production here at multi-award winning Puddingstone Distillery.
These gins are cherished for their uniqueness and represent unusual botanicals, seasonal gins, or gin collaborations with other local businesses, charities and sports clubs.
Preserving these past creations is our way to honour the evolution of our gin craftsmanship and celebrate rare flavour profiles that define our expertise and history as a true Hertfordshire distillery.
Explore the artistry behind our retired gins that capture the spirit’s rich history, showcasing its creative diversity and timeless appeal.
CASK AGED CACAO GIN
All bottles have gone to good homes
We’ve always suggested that a simple G&T using our Campfire Cask Aged Gin can be elevated with a dash of chocolate bitters yet we’d never given thought to actually introducing chocolate as a key botanical until 2022 when we launched PUD PUD Cacao. Fast forward to January 2024 and jubilation here at the distillery when Campfire Cask Aged Gin picked up another award, a gold medal at the World Gin Awards, declaring it best in England and in the top 13 best Cask Aged gins in the world!
But how could we make it better… chocolate
So we took an already versatile gin, suited to simple serves and cocktails and expertly blended it with distilled organic Peruvian cacao nibs to introduce a whole new flavour dimension. It was quite frankly awesome, especially when served up in a Negroni, hence the reasons there's no bottles left!
ULTRASONIC Gin
All bottles have gone to good homes
"Summery but pleasingly hearty – it's like being sat in a country pub garden on a sunny day with an elderflower pressé and an apple crumble!" Paul Jackson, The Gin Guide
Inspired by the flight of native bats through the British countryside, this bold gin used a unique ultrasonic process and pot distillation to extract flavour and aroma from local hedgerow plants including elderflower, along with Bramley apple and mint.
For each bottle sold, we donated £2 to Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, raising over £3,000 to support the charity’s work protecting bats and other wildlife across Hertfordshire and Middlesex.
Emma Norrington, the Trust’s Head of Fundraising and Communications said: “We’re thrilled to have partnered with Puddingstone Distillery again to create a one-of-a-kind gin. Hertfordshire is home to some magnificent wild places and species, and we’re always delighted when local businesses are keen to help protect them. This exciting gin was the perfect way to capture the beauty of our countryside, highlight the amazing natural techniques of our bats and the work we do / need to do for their conservation”.
Bats are the only true flying mammal in the world. There are 17 species of bats in the UK, 12 of which can be found in Hertfordshire. Bats live in a range of habitats and Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust works hard to manage these places so that bats can thrive.
Bats are so-called indicator species, serving as a measurement of how well wildlife is faring and how well conservation efforts are working because they occupy a wide range of habitats and are sensitive to changes in the environment.
The dominant juniper forward profile and deliberate omission of a strong citrus botanical allowed the consumer to shape the gin to suit their palate. Our choice was over ice with Franklin & Sons Indian tonic and some slices of apple. It also made an awesome martini too!
WATFORD FC CENTENARY Gin
All bottles have gone to good homes
This limited edition bottling of our multi-award winning Campfire London Dry Gin commemorated Watford Football Club's 100 years at The Vic.
Vicarage Road has been the home of Watford FC since 1922. During 100 years at The Vic, the club has experienced countless historic events and memorable moments which were celebrated with the release of this special centenary collector's edition gin.
Each custom painted matt black with gold print bottle was hand numbered and shipped in plastic free packaging.
Distillery founders, Ben and Kate, both grew up in Watford and at one point lived within earshot of the cheering crowds of Vicarage Road!
Pud Pud Cask Gin
All bottles have gone to good homes
*PUD PUD Cask Gin was rated 1st place in The Telegraph's Christmas Gins 2019 top 6! 10/10*
*PUD PUD Cask Gin was rated 3rd place in The Telegraph's Christmas Gins 2018 top 6!*
There comes a time when the ex-bourbon casks we use for our award winning Campfire Cask Aged Gin get a little ‘tired’, but as we've discovered they still have life in them. PUD PUD Cask Christmas gin was first launched as an experiment for World Gin Day 2018.
PUD PUD Cask Gin was a blend of distilled Hertfordshire Christmas pudding and compounded juniper, raisin, allspice, cinnamon and fresh orange peel. Before ageing the gin we filled each ex-bourbon barrel with a liberal quantity of ruby port, rotating the barrels daily for a month so it soaks into the wood. The barrels were then refilled with the winter seasonal Christmas gin and rested for a further month.
The aromatic spice and juniper characteristics of PUD PUD were complemented by vanilla, caramel and bourbon notes and the sweet fruitiness of the port. The finished result was a rich golden colour with a touch of pink to the hue.
Our preferred serve was neat over ice but for a G&T we favoured Fever-Tree Aromatic tonic water. We liked to savour a small piece of 70% dark chocolate as a side garnish.
PUD PUD Cask Gin was distilled and compounded and gluten free.
PUD PUD CACAO Gin
All bottles have gone to good homes
PUD PUD Cask Aged Gin was originally launched as a summer limited edition gin in 2018. Its popularity led us to bring it back later that year as part of the PUD PUD Christmas Gin range. We'd been wanting to experiment with cacao nibs for a while so we held back some of our PUD PUD Cask Aged Gin from the 2021 batch and blended it with distilled organic Peruvian cacao nibs to create PUD PUD Cacao Gin.
The combination of the cacao nibs and the lightly spiced gin rested in port washed ex bourbon barrels was simply delicious. Best served as a simple G&T or in one of the cocktails listed here – Choc Martini (PUD PUD Cacao Gin with Regal Rogue Lively White Vermouth) and Big Kid – our Neapolitan ice cream in cocktail form creation (PUD PUD Cacao Gin, vanilla syrup and strawberries).
Pud Pud Gin
All bottles have gone to good homes
PUD PUD Christmas Gins make the perfect gin gift. Pronounced PUD as in Christmas pudding and referring to a key ingredient as well as our distillery name, Puddingstone. This was our first winter seasonal Christmas gin using the finest Macedonian juniper, Spanish orange peel and Hertfordshire-made Christmas puddings.
Using a combination of vapour and pot distillation techniques we balanced the extraction of classic gin profiles and the rich spice characteristics of the amazing Christmas puddings.
Served with Fever-Tree Indian or Light tonic water, a garnish of fresh orange peel and a piece of 70% dark chocolate. Yum!
It also made a delicious aperitif served as a bone dry martini. Substitute our Campfire London Dry Gin with the PUD PUD Distilled Christmas gin using this recipe.
The Christmas puddings in PUD PUD Gin were distilled and therefore the gin was gluten free.
Domestique Gin
All bottles have gone to good homes
We love bikes. Fact. Ben a bit more so than Kate (unless the bike has a front basket!) as quantified by the number of misspent hours riding, usually up and down steep woodland trails. When we were approached back in 2017, by ashmei, a local sports clothing brand, to create a themed limited edition cycling gin to be launched at the famed Rouleur cycling event, we could not refuse.
The gin named Domestique, after a cyclist in a road racing team whose role is to help their team leader, evolved to a stage where it truly was steeped in the spirit of cycling by being bottled in a classic stainless steel bidon that fitted in water bottle holders. After all, it should have a life after all the gin has been consumed.
And what about the gin in the bottle? Well, we selected botanicals from host countries of the major cycling tours. Alongside the required juniper, there was British coriander seed, Spanish orange peel, French hops, Belgian angelica root, Italian rosemary, Californian raisins and as a nod to the rural location of our distillery and the fact that the Tour of Britain has passed through Tring and the Chiltern Hills we also included rosehip.
Domestique Gin was a finalist in The Gin Guide Awards 2021 and Highly Commended in the Classic Gin category at the Craft Distilling Expo 2018. Judges at the awards included distillers, Gin Guild members, leading gin bloggers, spirit buyers and bartenders.
We produced two small batches of 200 bottles and refilled many bidons for those lucky enough to have one but received many requests for Domestique Gin to be bottled in glass which we were pleased to do in 2020.
Special edition No 1
All bottles have gone to good homes
Special by name and both special and unique by nature… for nature. This was not just another pink gin. This was pink for a purpose.
Early in 2016 we sat down with Herts & Middlesex Wildlife Trust with the aim to create a gin using a botanical taken from the sites they manage. Now we’re not the biggest fans of foraging and HMWT are not farmers so we arrived at an unusual option, Himalayan balsam, a species neither farmed or foraged, but destroyed.
Himalayan balsam is a non native invasive plant species bought to the UK by the Victorians. Balsam is now responsible for the erosion of river banks and for crowding rare chalk streams and native plants, preventing growth and pollination. Unmanaged it will change the ecology forever.
Each year the Trust and teams of volunteers uproot and destroy the balsam before it starts to seed. This is where we stepped in. Himalayan balsam has a pink, orchid-like flower which we removed, air dried and infused into our unique base gin. The resulting gin had a complex mix of juniper, citrus, honey, floral and savoury notes. £2.00 from the sale of every bottle went back to HMWT.
The aim of the balsam gin was to be self destructive. We knew eventually we'd reach a point where we couldn't collect enough flowers because the plants had been cleared and native plants could begin to regrow. This point was reached in 2020 and from summer 2021 we have are launching another exciting gin collaboration with HMWT.
1594 SPIRIT OF BOX MOOR GIN
All bottles have gone to good homes
In 2019 we teamed up with local charity The Box Moor Trust to create a special limited edition gin to celebrate the Trust’s 425th anniversary. Using rare juniper cultivated on the Trust’s land, the commemorative gin takes its name from the year the charity was founded. ‘1594 Spirit of Box Moor’ was launched as part of the Autumn Festival celebrations held on Blackbirds Moor, Boxmoor.
425 bottles each at 42.5% ABV were created, one for each year of the Trust’s history. The self-supporting charity manages nearly 500 acres of grazing and amenity land on the outskirts of Hemel Hempstead and Bovingdon, with a remit to maintain the area's natural environment and wildlife on behalf of the local community.
Each of the commemorative bottles featured an individually numbered tag made from paper created from used Campfire Gin botanicals. These were handmade at the nearby Frogmore Paper Mill adding to the local provenance of 1594.
Made to a classic London Dry style the small batch gin combined the Hertfordshire grown juniper with specially selected botanicals including fresh lime peel, a historical nod to the fact that Box Moor Wharf was the home of Roses Lime Cordial from 1946 till 1983.
£2 from every bottle sold was donated to the Trust.
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