Spirits Limited Micro Distillery (No Visitor Centre/Shop), Burray, Orkney KW17 2SS, Verenigd Koninkrijk
Orkney Gin Company Famous passionate
Johnsmas Gin
Johnsmas
Gin (a spirit with juniper forward and several other delicious botanicals)
Johnsmas – meaning ‘mid summer’ in old Orcadian, is a floral and fragrant gin crafted using a variety of hand picked and seasonal botanicals that capture the clean and refreshing floral notes of an Orcadian summer.
The Story
Our multi award winning Johnsmas Gin is inspired by the long, clear days of an Orkney summer where the sun barely sets behind the standing stones of the Ring of Brodgar.
‘Johnsmas’, meaning ‘midsummer’ in Old Orcadian was traditionally marked by bonfires, festivals, and music. This time of year is steeped in Orkney folklore.
Johnsmas
Botanicals
Johnsmas is a floral
and fragrant gin hand crafted using a variety of foraged seasonal botanicals that capture the clean and refreshing floral notes of midsummer.
We love our Johnsmas in a tall glass with tonic on the long summer nights, or for the more adventurous – use in your favourite cocktails!
Botanicals
Home Grown Mint
Orcadian Heather Flower
Juniper Berries
Wild Rose Petals
Orange Peel
Mikkelmas Gin
Gin (a spirit with juniper forward and several other delicious botanicals)
Bold, seasonal
botanicals make up our Mikkelmas gin, which captures the spirit of the Mikkelfeast – ‘harvest time’ here in Orkney, creating a
a spiced, silky smooth autumnal gin.
Mikkelmas The Story
The Mikkelfeast,
or the Feast of St Michael
was traditionally celebrated by Orcadians from
the 29th Sep – 12th Oct.
This celebration marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of our long winter.
The tradition still exists today with many parishes hosting their
own Harvest Home, a traditional supper and dance that lasts long into the night.
Mikkelmas Botanicals
As the sun sets into the Autumn skies, bold, seasonal botanicals are used to capture the warming spirit of Mikkelmas in a spicy, silky smooth gin.
It is delicious served with
tonic water or ginger ale and
garnished with a slice of orange. Personally we love it as the base of a hot toddy!
Botanicals
Orange Peel
Juniper Berries
Heather Berries
Wild Rose Hips
Cinnamon
Christmas Old Tom
The Story
We love all things Christmas here at Orkney Gin Company. So we decided to create a spirit that captures everything we love about a cosy Christmas. Imagine the best festive candle you’ve ever smelt – it’s just like that, but every single flavour you smell. Cosy candied fruits, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and lots of citrus.
Christmas Old Tom
Botanicals
This Christmassy delight is all natural, handmade with whole fruit; lemons, oranges and wintery dried fruits too, cosy cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and a cosy touch of ginger amongst many inviting botanicals.
We use our award-winning Aatta as the base of our Christmas Old Tom, giving it an exceptional depth and complexity, with botanicals such as orris and tonka bean.
Christmas Old Tom
Serves
We love to enjoy the botanicals on its own in a lovely sherry style glass. We also really enjoy Christmas Old Tom with citrus tonics and sodas. Add a slice of dried orange for an extra christmassy touch.
Get festive with a Christmas Old Tom Fizz. Perfect for celebrating. Just add a shot to your Prosecco or Champagne and enjoy!
Christmas Old Tom
Awards
We pride even our special editions on their wonderful taste. Our Christmas Old Tom was awarded an amazing two star great taste award for its yummy sweet multi layered flavours – cosy and Christmassy.
Rhubarb Old Tom Gin
Gin (a spirit with juniper forward and several other delicious botanicals)
Old Tom (a technique/type of gin which involves lightly sweetening the spirit. – perfect for tart rhubarb!)
Made to a traditional Old Tom style which originates in
the 18th century, Rhubarb Old Tom is a soft, lightly sweetened full strength rhubarb gin, made using botanicals which compliment Scotland’s seasonal rhubarb.
Rhubarb Old Tom
The Story
Rhubarb has long been celebrated in Orkney, with recipes passed down through generations of Orcadians over the years. We love to use traditional methods and
ingredients from times past.
‘Old Tom’ is a style of gin, dating back to the 18th century, where the gin would be lightly sweetened, to give a smoother finish. We realised this traditional method would allow the tart rhubarb we were picking for each batch to shine to its full potential,
Rhubarb Old Tom
Botanicals
Our Rhubarb Old Tom was released on World Gin Day 2017. Inspired by our families rhubarb recipes, this Old Tom uses botanicals which compliment the unique taste of rhubarb. Lightly sweetened, the zesty rhubarb is enhanced by the smooth juniper berries and citrus peel.
Botanicals:
Rhubarb
Rose Petals
Citrus
Cinnamon
Rhubarb Old Tom Awards
Our Rhubarb Old Tom was released on World Gin Day 2017, almost a year after our Johnsmas and Mikkelmas. With it’s delicious zesty rhubarb, complimented by the soft juniper and citrus, Rhubarb Old Tom didn’t take long to catch up with popularity. It’s been awarded a fantastic Great Taste Award, and a Silver in it’s category in the World Gin Awards.
About Us
“At Orkney Gin Company, we make our spirit the traditional way. We’re a small scale family business,
and we’re proud of our Orcadian roots.”
Gary Watt – Owner/Director and Head Distiller
Our spirits are produced on the Isle of Burray, Orkney– the ‘Broch Isle’ of Scapa Flow.
At Orkney Gin Company we are passionate about our local history and folklore. We think it’s important to remind people of archaic words once used on the Orkney Islands, traditions still enjoyed today and love repeating tales once told through many generations through our Selkie Folk inspired bottles. Many of the all-natural ingredients in our spirits have been hand-picked and enjoyed for hundreds of years by many families here on our islands.
HAND-MADE WITH LOVE
Our method of making our gins; Johnsmas, Mikkelmas and Rhubarb Old Tom takes us back hundreds of years to the bathtub method. These three gins are distilled seven times to ensure they are of a fantastic quality, then we add botanicals in stages over varied time periods to our ultra-small batches. This technique can take up to a month for each small batch from start to end, and when we made Sloe & Crow, it took almost five months! This process works really well with ingredients including rose petals and mint, as many of them do not respond well to heat. They enjoy steeping cold and the alcohol absorbs the beautiful fresh flavours creating flavours unlike most other gins.
Our Aatta Gin and unique Orkney Akvavit (Scotland’s first ever Aquavit) are made slightly different. Similar to our other gins, botanicals are steeped in the spirit (this time for a shorter period), then they are distilled one more time in our purpose built 250 litre intelligent still, creating an incredible eight times distilled silky-smooth spirit. We use only whole botanicals in these spirits, including whole oranges and Madigascan vanilla. The botanicals chosen behave slightly differently to those in our other gins, with many ingredients including rose hips opened up to embrace the temperature changes and give many depths of flavour.
BOTTLED BY HAND
The next stages are the same for all our spirits. Our specially designed bottles are cleaned by hand by the window overlooking Scapa Flow, then bottled using our new four bottle filling machine. We work with bottles in two’s (because we would love to be an octopus but we sadly aren’t), filling two and moving two towards the corking area. Another member of our family will hand-cork the bottles, then it is dried and each label is placed on carefully by hand. Each bottle is then shrink wrapped and placed into one of our cases ready for orders.
INSPIRED BY OUR ISLANDS
Orkney’s rich culture of traditions formed the inspiration behind each distinct taste. Our spirits are made using traditional techniques, we don’t believe in rushing to get to the end product, and we like to keep our company as a small family business, nothing corporate, all hand-made with love and only the best ingredients.
We use as many hand picked (foraged) and home grown Orcadian botanicals as we can find around us including; heather flower, crow berries, rhubarb, rose petals and rose hips. These were used by our ancestors in the past for cooking and drinks making. We love to look at old cookery books from local areas for new ingredients and combinations, and we are always looking for more fresh ingredients around us while we walk around Orkney.
Our labels and bottles were inspired by the beautiful stoneware and glassware we are sometimes lucky enough to find washed up on Orkney’s beaches. They remind us of simple times, where small genuine family run businesses like our own were everywhere. We love how looking at something special can make you feel like you’ve been transported to a different time.
Almost all of our design work – including the website and bottles themselves have been completed in house by our family. We find doing it this way ensures the look of our products perfectly marry the flavour and what we are all about. The exception in our design work would be Hackney and Co’s gorgeous drawings. She lives just down the road from us, a family friend and illustrator, who drew the beautiful botanicals you see surrounding the bottles online, and she also enjoyed trying out seascapes, painting the back of our Orkney Akvavit bottle.
Our logo depicts a Selkie-Woman. Stories of the elusive selkie-folk – seals which are able to cast their skin and assume human form – highlight how mysterious and alluring these shape shifting creatures may have been. The tales of their interactions with humans have been passed down through generations of Orcadians and on to our bottles today.
Our spirits are produced on the Isle of Burray, Orkney– the ‘Broch Isle’ of Scapa Flow.
At Orkney Gin Company we are passionate about our local history and folklore. We think it’s important to remind people of archaic words once used on the Orkney Islands, traditions still enjoyed today and love repeating tales once told through many generations through our Selkie Folk inspired bottles. Many of the all-natural ingredients in our spirits have been hand-picked and enjoyed for hundreds of years by many families here on our islands.
HAND-MADE WITH LOVE
Aatta Orkney Gin Award Winning
Aatta The Bespoke Bottle
With our Aatta, we brought our well known ‘selkie wife’ (which can be seen in our logo on all our previous spirits) to life by hand painting elements of the iridescent inner label. Tales of these mysterious sirens which were said to lure unsuspecting sailors into the sea can be found in many folklore books and stories of these creatures are kept alive by people like ourselves who continue to talk about it.
The bespoke gorgeous prism shaped bottle and quality glass stopper reflect light and create an effect on the siren inside, as she appears to move and swim. The bottle has our company name, ‘Orkney Spirits Limited’ debased in the glass itself, with a gorgeous deep base made into the shape of the seabed oozing class and mystery. This bottle looks amazing on any shelf and truly represents the quality spirit inside.
Aatta The Story
Inspired by our local history and folklore, Aatta – meaning eight in Old Norse, the language once spoken on the Orkney Islands – is a distinctive London Dry Gin, distilled an impressive eight times with eight botanicals. London Dry is a style of gin making with specific quality standards which must be followed to allow use of the name. Aatta is set to be our signature gin with whole fresh botanicals bursting with flavour.
Aatta Botanicals
Aatta is a complex and bright London Dry Gin. Whole Croatian juniper adds a piney and green freshness, fresh Sicilian oranges form a bright zest and dancing zing, hand-picked rose hips create a lively and slightly floral touch with the seeds inside giving another dimension, more earthy and rich. A few sticks of cinnamon add another earthy yet slightly sweet component and whole Madagascan vanilla gives the spirit a long and velvety finish.
Aatta Serves
Aatta is such a bright and fresh London Dry Gin, we prefer to keep its accompaniments simple. We love this hand-made gin with Indian tonic, or Mediterranean tonic and a little orange. In the winter, the addition of a cinnamon stick gives it a lovely festive twist.
Just because we love to strip it back to basics – doesn’t mean you have to! Aatta is very versatile – try it with your favourite G&T mixers, soda, lemonade, ginger ale. We also enjoy Aatta as a basis of cocktails. Keep an eye out on our ‘News’ and ‘Cocktails’ page for new serves and cocktail ideas!
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