A Lake District gin has taken centre stage in an ITV show at the weekend.
On Sunday, Grasmere Distillery’s hand-crafted Dry Gin was featured on the small screen in Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh.
During the show broadcaster and drinks expert Becky Paskin joined Alan, actors Philip Glenister Jenny Agutter and Renee Bailey in the barn as she created a series of tempting libations commemorating old Hollywood and some of the world’s most famous silver screen stars in preparation for the 97th Academy Awards and the presentation of this year’s Oscars that night.
In each episode in the series, Becky celebrates the Best of British drinks by serving up a range of cocktails for guests to sample made using ingredients sourced entirely from British makers.
Becky serve up a Breakfast Royal made with English Sparkling Wine inspired by Breakfast at Tiffany’s, followed by a Marilyn Monroe Manhattan made with a Scotch Whisky inspired by Some Like It Hot.
Up next is a French 75, inspired by Casablanca, made using a Scottish gin. Followed swiftly by a Shirley Temple, made with a pre-made non-alcoholic cocktail mix celebrating the iconic movie star.
The final drink featured Grasmere Distillery’s Dry Gin, with the Lakes-made spirit taking centre stage in a Gibson Martini, inspired by two seminal 50s films All About Eve and North By Northwest.
Paul Abbot, founder and head distiller at Grasmere Distillery, said: “The programme’s producers contacted us out of the blue in February and said they specifically wanted Grasmere Dry Gin for their drinks feature.
“As a result, we’re really proud of the fact that we’ve had the opportunity to feature on a fantastic show like Love Your Weekend and have one of the UK’s leading drinks writers Becky Paskin work her magic and create a unique Gibson Martini in celebration of Sunday’s Academy Awards.
“National TV shows like this help showcase what we’re about, and they’re a great way of highlighting what small artisan producers across the region are busy creating, all of which helps put Cumbria on the UK’s food and drink map.”
Grasmere Distillery started crafting spirits in 2021, undertaking months of testing, tweaking recipes, investing in plant, and hosting tasting trials with their customers at their Grasmere tap room The Distillers Arms, all designed to create spirits that meet our stringent quality standards.
Paul has chosen a very unusual and challenging approach to sourcing their neutral grain spirit, by producing their own from distilling beer. After numerous test brews, there’s no doubt that they’ve mastered the art.
To produce a single drop of the distillery’s gin or vodka takes a minimum of three weeks of work. It all starts with the soft Cumbrian water naturally filtered through slate, which gives each of our beers such distinctive quality delivering crispness in our gins, and a rich, lingering mouthfeel in our vodka.
He added: “We meticulously select every single ingredient; from the water we use to the finest wheat and rye grown across England.
“Then, using tried and tested mashing processes, we extract precise profiles for each spirit before fermenting. For our base spirit, we utilise brewer’s ale malt which provides us with a golden, biscuit-like aroma and makes a higher quality beer, we vary our yeasts, and we also like to experiment from time to time with flaked torrefied oats and small quantities of speciality malt, which provide Paul with interesting flavour profiles, depth, and body.
“Distilled slowly and gently, no less than five times, in our beautiful all-copper stills Emmeline and Alfred, then it’s a minimum of two weeks of conditioning and polishing to allow the distinctive character of each spirit to ripen before we even contemplate bottling.”
The episode is available to watch on ITVx.
