Longtime readers will know my soft spot for Stone Pine Gin. It was the first boutique Australian gin I discovered so it would be in my affection anyway, but I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting the distiller Ian Glen who is entirely delightful which confirms my affection in perpetuity.
This past summer they released their first special seasonal gin, flavoured with handpicked orange blossom. I love middle eastern flavours like rosewater, pistachio and orange blossom in cakes and desserts so I was intrigued to see how it would work in gin.
PROCESS
Stone Pine Gin is distilled in a copper still using traditional and native Australian botanicals. Each of the botanicals are distilled individually then blended into the finished gin.
BOTANICALS
Ian is slightly secretive about their blend of botanicals, but like the original gin the orange blossom gin features native finger lime prominently with a gentle base of juniper, blended with the orange blossom of course.
TASTING NOTES
The fragrance is very intensely orange blossom, I’d almost like to wear at as a perfume, but not in a bad way!
The first thing I noticed on tasting is that the lime is still powerful up front in the flavour profile, despite the strong scent of orange blossom, the flavour sits further back and gives the gin a long floral finish without being too sweet or soapy.
IN DRINKS
I’m still working my way through an accidentally purchased sweet white vermouth and I thought this would be an interesting gin to try in a sweet martini and boy was I wrong. I garnished the martini with a twist of orange peel and the combination of the sweet vermouth and orange peel with orange blossom was just far too much, veering into perfume territory in a not good way.
Lesson learnt, I chose a lemon peel garnish for a gin and tonic with the softer Fever Tree Mediterranean tonic. This blended beautifully, the soft tonic allowed the orange blossom to shine and the lemon peel offer a slightly acidic balance to the floral intensity.
WHAT OTHERS SAY
Ess Jay Eats
Mr & Mrs Romance
Cocktails & Bars
WHERE TO BUY
The 2015 batch is sold out but there are promises of another batch in summer 2016.
Disclaimer I was sent a sample bottle of Stone Pine Seasonal Orange Blossom Gin for review consideration by the company’s distributor Nip of Courage. While I appreciate the generosity of this gift, my appreciation has not influenced this article.