What is the inspiration behind St Giles Gin? Simon Melton, the founder of St. Giles Gin, has been a gin enthusiast for many years and having worked as a professional diver he has been fortunate enough to travel extensively and had the opportunity to sample a wide variety of gins, from all over the world. After trying so many different gins Simon decided he would like to create his own, inspired by his travels abroad. How did you get from the idea to the finished product? The initial direction given to our distiller, Pete Margree, was that we wanted to produce a gin with a beautifully smooth texture. After over 100 small scale trials Pete had identified a unique blend of botanicals that combined smoothness with a sumptuous depth of flavour.
What’s the story behind the St Giles Gin name? Our gin was born in Norwich and we wanted a name to reflect that. We have a house in St Giles which is an historic area in the beautiful city in Norwich. St Giles Road used to have a Distillery Street that ran off, it so it seemed like the perfect choice. St Giles is also infamous for being the London location of the 18th Century gin craze. What's the distillery like and can you tell us about the distillation process? Our custom built, hand made, 400L copper still came from Germany and took five months to build to our specification. We wanted to purchase the very best so we asked that ours also had a triple distillation column, botanical basket and a complex condensing tower. It's named Anna, after our first daughter. The still is housed in a timber clad barn just outside the fine city of Norwich. We distill our gin very slowly and are meticulous with our temperature control in order to replicate the high quality of gin in each batch. What's a normal day at the distillery like for you? It's a family business so we are all involved. Pete does the distilling and can usually be seen staring though the viewing glass or carefully monitoring flow rates to ensure that the delicate flavours and smoothness of St. Giles Gin are retained throughout the process. The rest of us help with the bottling, labelling, marketing, selling and delivering. How would you describe your gin in 3 words? Delicate, refreshing, smooth. What makes St Giles Gin different to other gins? St Giles Gin combines a delicate and subtle flavour profile with a velvety smoothness. Lemon grass and rose petals combine to produce a light, aromatic and refreshing contemporary gin, that boasts a complex and layered flavour journey. St Giles gin caresses the taste buds with ‘soft whispers’ of flavours.
What's your favourite way to drink St Giles Gin gin?
St. Giles Gin is best paired with a premium plain tonic so as to let the gin shine. We advise a 50:50 gin:tonic ratio to really open up the refreshing citrus and floral notes. What are your favourite gins (other than your own of course!)? So many to choose from but Sipsmith Gin, Martin Miller's Gin and Rock Rose Gin always go down well. Can you tell us more about the other products in your range? In 2018 we released our Divers' Edition Navy Strength Gin. A brainchild of founder, Simon, this gin boasts deep and complex flavours that linger on the palate, but still retains the St Giles trademark smoothness. Distilled with many maritime botanicals such as marsh samphire and sea kelp, the Divers Edition is Simon’s nod of respect to the seas and oceans of the planet, and of course to his 30 year career in commercial diving. The following year we released our pink fruit gin – St. Giles Raspberry, Rhubarb and Ginger Gin. Our aim was to produce a high quality offering in the fruit gin market. We use a combination of distillation and infusion to achieve the bright fresh fruit notes, but still retain a rounded depth of flavour that is missing in so many fruit gins. What's next for St Giles Gin - any exciting plans? We have recently released our seasonal Spiced Orange and Cranberry Gin as the first product in our ‘Limited Edition Series’. Again combining the processes of distillation and infusion, this winter warmer has an initial hit of fresh orange and cranberry with a warm satisfying spiced finish.
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