Gooseberry gin was a bit of a gamble and I have never seen one floating about the shelves between sloe, rhubarb, pink (what ever fruit that is?) or blackberry that has recently become sexy in gin land. For all my flavoured gins I use a base of a supermarket own brand or Gordon’s. I need something above tramp juice but neutral enough to let the fruit shine through as a taste that does not fight something powerfully towards the citrus, floral or herbal or one particular botanical.

I grow pink gooseberries that are sweeter but later harvesting than the sour green ones. This sweeter taste meant I did not have to back sweeten the gin once the it had macerated for a couple of months. The floral taste and residual sugar that was extracted was enough unlike making sloe gin that needs a lot of extra sugar to counter the absolute sourness of the mouth puckering sloe berries.

A few other extras were added with fresh orange zest rather than lemon adding a citrus kick. One cardamom pod was peeled and added for a hint of perfume and an inch of fresh vanilla pod to add a rounded smoothness.

All in all its a lovely mellow fruity gin well suited for a gin and tonic when a more subtle fruit taste is wanted rather than the rich deepness of sloe, the sharpness of a rhubarb or the cloying sweetness of er… pink fruit.

GOSSEBERRY GIN 700ml

1 x bottle of average gin

400g pink gooseberries

1 x cardamom pod

1 inch of vanilla

Zest of half an orange

Zest the orange so there is nice zingy skin with no white pith. Peel the cardamom and discard the woody pod. Cut an inch or so of vanilla pod. Measure 250g of gooseberries. Throw it all into a litre or litre and a half Kilner jar with the gin and leave for two months in a dark space. Decant afterwards. Back sweeten if you’re not sweet enough.