Hamilton Rd, Strathaven ML10 6UB, UK
The Jaunty Camper Gin Jovial Spirits
Meet Jasmine
the VW who inspired
The Jaunty Camper Gin
The Jaunty Camper Gin Brand
The Jaunty Camper Gin brand is a combination of two huge loves – classic campervans and craft gin. It began with creating a gin which celebrated the Jaunty Camper herself – a 1972 VW T2 called Jasmine – and expanded as brand founder Yva explored other botanical and vehicle interests.
The Ginnery – a new home
My little gin brand began with support from two more established local brands, but the time has come for a little bit of space of our own, so 2024 will see the establishment of a gin HQ for the Jaunty Camper brand.
While it won’t be open to the public, the new space will allow the brand a little bit more elbow room and flexibility as the brand’s reach continues to grow.
About Me
Hi – I’m Yva and I am the plans and schemes, hopes and dreams department of The Jaunty Camper Gin brand.
I am the crazy lady who fell in love with a classic campervan called Jasmine after a weekend hire, who then bought her (almost 5 years later) and ran a little hire company for a couple of years.
I am the craft gin enthusiast who toured around Scotland visiting small gin places trying to put together routes for Gin Jaunts in classic VW campervans. Although I had to stick a pin in that idea for now, it did lead me to a Gin School where I put all my research to good use and created the recipe for what would go on to be The Jaunty Camper Gin!
Having used my powers of persuasion (and PowerPoint) on my local craft gin producers at McLean’s Gin and building a creative team from local artists Christine Allan and Anne Anderson, I am the lucky lady who took a chance on the big time (ok, small time) and launched a craft gin during a pandemic.
I couldn’t have done it without the support of my team – local retailers Jaro Design were in on it from the start as were The Callander Drinks Co and bar serves can be found in The Strathaven Hotel and The Bungo with family owned Rockvilla in Lochcarron being my northern outpost. Although I am a solo business operator, I surround myself with great people and shout about their contributions as often as I can.
I continued with recipe development until I had a range of gins that I was happy to put my name to – continuing to use the contract distilling skills of Colin McLean from McLean’s Gin and the team at Biggar Gin, I brought to market The Jammy Damsel Old Tom Gin and The Feisty Biker Navy Strength Gin and completed the set with a fourth gin – the world’s first green tomato gin The Racy GT. The most recent spirit adventure is not a gin, Hoose Measure is a unique spirit crafted from locally sourced garden botanicals for something gin-like … but different.
I have branched out into other collaborations along the way – Quirky Chocolate have brought my recipe idea for gin infused chocolate into being and there is an ongoing crafting collaboration which brings lovely gift items to the website when inspiration strikes as well as a growing range of T-shirts and hoodies with the Jaunty logo on them!
When I am not planning and daydreaming about all things gin, I work as a Celebrant conducting funerals and weddings from my home-base in Strathaven. You can find out more about that side of life by looking at my website www.AfterWords.co.uk
Thanks for being interested and I hope you enjoy my gin!
Yva
For an easy way to be in touch – click to send an email
The Jaunty Camper Gin
The Jaunty Camper Gin became a FINALIST in the 2021 Scottish Gin Awards in the Distilled Gin category just days after first release and is perfectly served with an original tonic and a sprig of fresh basil.
The Jaunty Camper Gin recipe was developed, as you might imagine, on a campervan road-trip back in the Spring of 2019 in a copper pot-still by the sea. The botanicals were chosen for flavour, but also for their story elements – I wanted the gin to taste of adventure with a grounding in the Scottish seaside village where I was born and yet have hints of the far-flung places I have visited over the years.
The trio of gin essentials are there – Juniper, Coriander and Angelica. Growing juniper in Scotland is a challenge that I haven’t taken on yet, but my home herb garden boasts a couple of different types of coriander (I love the Vietnamese one I have growing in my herb shutters in particular) and I have angelica doing well in there too. The botanicals in The Jaunty Camper Gin are not harvested from my garden, sadly, but I wanted that to have been a possibility for as many of them as possible.
Going to the seaside is so much a part of holidays from my childhood that I knew I wanted a seaside note to the gin. My family hail from Kyle of Lochalsh and fishing is very much the family business still, so some Scottish seaweed was an essential. The Dulse seaweed has a robust salty flavour and, when used in cooking, is paired with seafood and leafy greens so it was the perfect choice for a gin with a basil garnish pairing too.
Grains of Paradise are about far-flung shores and holidays I have taken, they are the hint of pepper and spice that keeps us going in the cold Scottish winters when planning sunny travel keeps us cheerful.
Black Cardamom pods are dried over open flames and bring a smokey campfire note to the gin – capturing that perfect moment when you have parked up for the night and have a well tended fire to sit around before the midges chase you indoors!
Life is nothing without a little sweetness and this comes from the Pistachio – the idea of including a nutty element comes from all the people who have gently suggested that there might be such a nutty note in my personality, particularly when I bought a classic VW campervan, and since my beloved campervan Jasmine is a lovely pistachio colour that helped me select the perfect nut for the finishing touch!
When it came to deciding on the alcohol percentage of the gin, I chose 42 for the taste … but also for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy because if Deep Thought wasn’t contemplating gin while calculating the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything then I’d be very surprised!
The recipe creation came from free wandering times, but the perfect pairing of the basil garnish came from the depths of lockdown when we were confined to our local radius and virtual gin tastings were the highlight of my days!
The beautiful hand crafted herb shutters I had made for me by a very talented cabinetmaker in Strathaven were potted up with herbs I could source locally or grow from seed and there was basil in abundance. I had ventured out of my garnish comfort zone under the excellent guidance of some of my gin friends and struck upon the idea of basil in gin. It was, quite frankly, a revelation and the green herby undertone does wonderful things to the seaweed flavours in particular.
There is another essential element to The Jaunty Camper Gin, but it isn’t a botanical ingredient so much as a grounding in my local community. The Strathaven people have done what many communities have and rallied around in these challenging times and it has helped beyond measure to have friendly faces in local places and voices on the phone and digital connections to brighten the days.
I wanted The Jaunty Camper Gin to reflect that and so the label is by local artistic duo Christine Allan and Anne Anderson – Christine first sketched Jasmine the Jaunty Camper as a colouring resource for local children during lockdown and went on to transform this image into watercolour paintings from which Anne created the label. The labels were first printed by Donald Cooper, another local business owner, whose wife Liz kept some green in my life with her local garden centre.
The wonderful herb shutters that house my basil collection were the bespoke creation of James Daniels and the gin wouldn’t have been possible without the talents and experience of McLean’s Gin – as well as featuring The Jaunty Camper as a guest gin in the range, Colin doorstep dropped his cocktail range to me more times than I care to admit through the darkness of lockdown.
I must also mention wonderful local gin purveyors Jaro Design who created and delivered gin tasting events and offered a supportive ear when challenges arose in adjusting to our new normal.
These people are my team, but I must also thank my family – The McKerlich clan are a lovely bunch and the delight of a new addition, my granddaughter Nova, has done amazing things for my ability to see the joy in a world made smaller. Can I mention the dogs? I have two now and they bring me happiness and conversation at a safe distance in my local green spaces.
So there you have it – the botanical gin journey of The Jaunty Camper Gin, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
The Jammy Damsel Gin
Joining the Jaunty Camper Gin range,
Special Edition damson gin:
The Jammy Damsel.
The temptation to add to the Jaunty Camper Gin range proved too strong to resist and so a new special edition gin was added to the range late in 2021: The Jammy Damsel Gin.
Inspired by the slightly tart richness of damson jam, this recipe has its base in the Jaunty Camper botanical profile, but moves away from the traditional Scottish dry gin category and into Old Tom style territory with the addition of delicious local damsons and a little sweetness. Still very much a full strength gin, The Jammy Damsel pairs well with tonic … but is dangerously delicious when added to a glass of fizz – you have been warned!
Naming this gin was easy – there was jammy inspiration and damson and damsel are only a slip of the tongue apart … especially when you have been on the gin … but it also strongly reflects that other use of the word jammy meaning lucky!
I really do feel like the jammiest girl in the world, getting to drive around in my gorgeous campervan talking about gin that I first made with my own fair hands – not many people get to spend their days in such fortunate ways. So, not to hog the spotlight too much because the gin speaks for itself, but I am the Jammy Damsel you see resting beside the new look campervan with a book and a bottle of gin at my feet … and I am happy to share.
The Jammy Damsel Gin launched on the 15th of December 2021 using a combination of some damsons grown in my friend’s garden and a larger supply sourced locally from Overton Farm in the Clyde Valley and is perfectly served with a slice of orange and a Mediterranean tonic.
The Feisty Biker Gin
Joining the Jaunty Camper Gin range,
Navy Strength Gin:
The Feisty Biker.
And then there were three. January 2022 saw the addition of a third gin to the Jaunty range with the campervans from Jaunty Camper and Jammy Damsel being joined by The Feisty Biker navy strength gin.
The common thread of botanicals runs through this gin too, but this time the basil has been distilled into the gin to give the clean fresh finish that I loved in the Jaunty Camper perfect serve.
The Feisty Biker is perfectly served with a green olive and a savoury tonic.
Where gins one and two reflected the reality of my life (more or less), gin three has a touch more daydream added – I do ride a motorbike, but the Feisty bike represents a major upgrade and is the big ask on my wish list for future days!
Taking the artwork in a different direction this time sees the Feisty Biker heading out on adventure from Strathaven bandstand towards the heathery hills and lochs of the north while the iconic hot air balloons make stately progress overhead.
This is not a gin for the faint-hearted – at its navy strength of 57% it certainly has some oomph to it … much like the bikers I know!
The Racy GT Gin
Introducing:
the savoury and delicious
The Racy GT Gin
Something a little bit different joins the range for the close of 2022 – green tomato gin!
This is certainly the recipe that has required the most development – the first trial bottle was ready at the same time as The Feisty Biker and was well received by close friends and family, but the core botanicals – green tomatoes – are very seasonal and by the time I had a recipe fine tuned I had used all I had grown and there were none to be had! It was frustrating at the time
because I knew I had something different to the norm to share, but it took things back to the planning stages and I refined the process to produce an even fresher taste with the 2022 crop with the trial batch tomatoes grown at home and additional tomatoes for full scale production sourced locally from the lovely Overton Farm in the Clyde Valley.
Perfectly served with a savoury tonic and a slice of gherkin!
Design inspiration came from childhood – I grew up in a car mad household and the Racy GT is modelled on a car that we owned, and I loved, as a child. I have my eye on one in the real world too, but if you recognise the car you’ll know there are not many of them around, so it is very much a watch this space for the real GT joining the car clan!
The Strathaven balloons are back again, getting a little closer to the action this time and shedding their botanical outfits in favour of a colourful carnival atmosphere. And my dogs have made the label, along with my G-Sprog’s beloved sheep, in a colourful tribute to the cartoons of yesteryear!
Hoose Measure
New Release – Halloween 2023
It’s not a gin … it’s not a vodka
it’s almost a geist, but not quite
it’s a … spirited beverage distilled in Scotland
(so I am calling it Spirit)
This is my first adventure into something that is NOT a gin … but doesn’t really fit into any of the other easy categories either. It is distilled, but also infused and it doesn’t have anything added after distillation apart from water to bring it down to 40% ABV.
It most closely resembles a spirit called geist (the German word for ghost or spirit) but, most importantly, it tastes delicious! Drink it like you would a gin … which in my case means with tonic, but it is also lovely with lemonade or soda if those are your go-to mixers of choice.
The primary botanical is Clyde Valley apples and the perfect serve is to add ice, a slice of apple, a slice of cucumber and an equal measure of Mediterranean tonic … be generous of spirit and pour yourself a ‘hoose measure’ sized serving!
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