By Scott Harris

Founder of Catoctin Creek

Catoctin Creek Watershed Gin is green. If you look at the capsule sealing each bottle of Catoctin Creek Watershed Gin, you’ll notice its green, unlike our Mosby’s Spirit and Roundstone Rye, which have black caps. For us, this color difference has real meaning. Not only is Catoctin Creek Watershed Gin is one of the few organic gins on the market, but it’s also produced in a zero waste process.

To make our gin, we start with whiskey. When we distill our whiskey, we make conservative cuts to ensure we have the smoothest whiskey possible. As a result, we have lots of alcohol that would normally go to waste. At Catoctin Creek, we re-distill the spirit until it has no taste and infuse it with our proprietary mix of botanicals, including juniper, bitter orange peel, cinnamon, coriander and anise seed. Besides using organic rye spirits for our gin’s base, we’re using 100% organic botanicals as well. Without any pesticides, herbicides, nitrogen-based fertilizers being used in the production of our gin, we’re helping to keep our streams and groundwater cleaner, hence the name “Watershed Gin”, referring to our native Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

Because of how well the color suits our gin, we love using Green Chartreuse when we make cocktails. Since Green Chartreuse has a little bit of anise in it as well, it plays well with our gin’s flavor profile. Two classic gin and Chartreuse cocktails, the Bijou and the Last Word, are excellent cocktails for enjoying Catoctin Creek Watershed Gin.

Bijou

1 ½ oz Catoctin Creek Watershed Gin

¾ oz Green Chartreuse

¾ oz sweet vermouth

2 dashes of orange bitters

Stir ingredients with ice and strain into a coupe.

Last Word

¾ oz Catoctin Creek Watershed Gin

¾ oz Green Chartreuse

¾ oz Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur

¾ oz lime juice

Shake ingredients until frost forms and strain into a coupe. Garnish with a brandied cherry.

If you typically drink martinis, I would wager these cocktails aren’t your stead. May we recommend our take on the original Bond cocktail: The Ghost of Vesper Lynd.

Using our Mosby’s Spirit in place of vodka in the conventional Vesper Martini recipe, you get a cocktail with a silky texture and a boozy punch, just like 007.

The Ghost of Vesper Lynd

2 oz Catoctin Creek Watershed Gin

½ oz Catoctin Creek Mosby’s Spirit

¼ oz Cocchi Americano

Stir ingredients with ice in a mixing glass and strain into a coupe. Garnish with lemon peel.

Try these and other gin cocktails with Scott Harris, co-owner of Catoctin Creek Distilling Co. when he visits the Gin Club on March 6.

Register for the March 6 Catoctin Creek tasting.