Hopefully, you have seen the news of our newest edition…the Biggar Gin Clyde Valley Plum Recipe. Here is a bit of background on it and why we developed it.
Our little town of Biggar is not very far from the River Clyde and Biggar Gin HQ is only a few hundred metres from the river, nestling in the Upper Clyde Valley. The Upper Clyde Valley is a special and beautiful place, but it is high up and can be exposed to low temperatures. Not very far away as the crow flies and below the famous Falls of Clyde, there is a stretch of the valley that is well sheltered with steep sides and fertile soil. That stretch of river has long been famous for its orchards and market gardens and latterly for its garden centres. The tradition of fruit growing is said to date back to medieval times and the monks of Lesmahagow Abbey. Sadly, a number of the old orchards have been neglected over the years, but more and more of them are being restored and / or replanted. We are a big fan of the work of the Clyde Valley Orchard Group, whose members are doing amazing work in preserving these landscapes and traditions.
As a family we have had long connections to the fruit growing tradition and to that stretch of the valley. In the 1810s, our many times great-grandfather William Thomson was granted land in the valley on the condition that he build a stone house and plant out an orchard, and so he did. He planted out apple trees, pear trees and, of course, plum trees. For us, there has always been something particularly special about the plums in the valley, and particularly the aroma of freshly picked plums. As children we used to love helping to pick plums and we will never forget the annual delight of the scent of the barn of family friends who grew a lot of stone fruit when it was filled with freshly picked Victoria plums – a favourite time of year.
We had been wanting to develop a fruit-infused Biggar Gin to join our award-winning London Dry gin, but we wanted to keep things as local as possible. We had a hunch that our beloved Clyde Valley plums would marry beautifully with Biggar Gin. Ands so the job of developing a new recipe began…
There is nothing wrong with a gin liquer but we very much wanted this to be a gin. We also wanted to preserve the lightness and delicacy of the plums' flavour and didn’t want to add any additional flavours or sugar.
We hope you will agree that what we have created is something rather special. It is light and delicate. It makes a delightful sipping gin over ice. But we think it really comes to life with a mixer opening up the flavour. With tonic it makes a dry but fruity long drink though our favourite is to pair it with a good quality ginger ale, the ginger pairing very well with the plum notes. We hope you will love it as much as we do.
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