News & Events

It’s monsoon weather in St Andrews when our Hong Kong cocktail champion, Rai Amrit, arrives at Eden Mill. This is a season he’s familiar with, being from the eastern edge of Nepal. He’s wrapped up in a winter coat and when I ask how he is his first comment is “cold”. This does nothing to dampen his spirits; every time I look at him he’s grinning from ear to ear.

In 2016 with the support of Eden Mill, Montrose Fine Wines and Bar Talk Magazine, Rai competed against forty mixologists from China and Macau to be crowned grand cocktail champion. Seven finalists were challenged to make an Asian-themed cocktail using one of Eden Mill’s gins and Rai’s time as a bartender at Hong Kong’s Artesian, The Langham, gave him the perfect training. His creation, a ‘Spiced Thai Royale’, incorporated our Oak Gin, lime juice, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass stalks, thinly sliced chilli and his own home made Thai sour mix. Perhaps the most stand out feature of his cocktail was the coconut-crafted cup, made by his carpenter father. He chose this to compliment the woody flavours of the Oak Gin and the effect is truly eye catching.

One of the prizes was a trip to Scotland to visit some of the amazing bars in Edinburgh and Glasgow and spend some time at Eden Mill Distillery. During his time in Scotland, Rai will be distilling his own gin using botanicals brought from his homeland of Nepal.

They’re carefully wrapped in plastic bags and when he opens the first one I get a powerful whiff of wood smoke. He takes out a handful of dark brown pods and explains that it’s black cardamom, native to Nepal and called aalaichi in Rai’s native tongue. It grows in the eastern hills and when Rai splits one open the smoky smell turns to fresh menthol. It’s a confusing botanical but easy to see how beautifully the flavours would lend themselves to a juniper-based spirit like gin. The second bag contains oddly familiar dried red flowers. When I bring a handful to my nose I’m immediately transported back to the temples of Kathmandu and the sweet floral aromas that hang in the air. We would recognise the flowers as red rhododendron but Rai identifies them as laliguras, Nepal’s national flower.

Rai is of small stature with a young face but he has lived a lot in his twenty five years. He moved to Hong Kong to study hotel management at college and has already completed his level two WSET exams with an eye to tackling level three. He started working in bars in 2015 and had competed in four other cocktail competitions before winning last year. He tells me that craft beers and spirits are popular in Hong Kong and the interest continues to grow. The trend is geared towards new, exciting drinks and Rai is ready to take it on. Ultimately his dream is to work in distilling and brewing and he is blown away by the the size of Eden Mill as he never realised so much work could go on in such small packages. It could be seen as a fitting analogy for his own accomplishments; one thing is for sure, Rai Amrit is one to watch in the future of Hong Kong’s cocktail, beer and spirits culture.

Winston Churchill once famously claimed that gin has saved more men’s lives and minds than all the doctors in Europe. Jo Brand, rather less famously stated that anything is good if it’s made of chocolate. Gin Is The New Chocolate – It was only a matter of time before someone put the two together.

Gin and chocolate tastings are popping up in every drink-loving city in the country, swiftly catching up with more commonplace wine and food pairings and even tipping whisky and cheese nights into the yesteryear. It’s a marriage not many people saw coming but when you think about it, chocolate and gin play very well together. Gin is known for displaying an almost infinite number of botanical additions and with the help of garnishes there’s no limit to what can be expressed. Chocolate as a food base can be rich or subtle, creamy or spicy, and is only as good as the favours imparted within. Who hasn’t jazzed up their evening hot chocolate with a helping of cinnamon or the lightest touch of chilli? And who hasn’t had a gin cocktail sweetened with gomme syrup (hello Tom Collins) or a gin Bloody Mary with a great dollop of Tabasco? If you haven’t, I suggest you go out immediately and get to it.

My gin & chocolate reflections

On the Gin Is The New Chocolate theme, in terms of Eden Mill, I’ve done some intensive research of my own. Our Hop Gin has a dry, floral character and the slight bitterness of the hops blends beautifully with the creaminess of a milk chocolate. Throw some honeycomb in the mix and you get a delicious reaction of alchemy; the honeycomb reverts to an almost raw state and the tacky mouth-feel creates a sumptuous texture.

The gentle rose and hibiscus flavours in our renowned Love Gin are suited to something delicate like white chocolate. The true beauty of white chocolate, and gin, lies in the botanics that can be added and a firm favourite of mine is a touch of jasmine. Picture a Scottish garden in summer and you’ll start to get an idea of this heavenly chocolate combination.

Whisky lovers have always been enticed by our Oak Gin as its maturation with bourbon staves makes it scream of caramel, toffee and honey notes. The slight sweetness of these flavours softens the juniper edge; an easy chocolate pairing would include caramel but to really get the taste buds tingling, add a sprinkling of sea salt.

Our London Dry Style Gin, the Original, has the added bonus of the sharp, citric burst of sea buckthorn. While it is the tartest of our expressions it is ironically best suited to a bitter dark chocolate as the astringent flavours are offset by the dark cocoa.

While gin and chocolate tastings are here to stay there will always be new pairings on the horizon. Perhaps we’ll be seeing gin and fried chicken by the end of the year? Maybe someone will crack open a gin and match it with foie gras.

For now though, I’ll enjoy my boozy chocolates.

Lara Williams

1st May 2017

Valentine’s Day: a time to show your loved one how much they truly mean to you. A day filled with love and appreciation; flowers and chocolates; affection and embrace. However, here at Eden Mill, it is a time of reflection. For us, Valentine’s Day is the celebration that Love Gin was inspired by.

It began life as a seasonal gin for Valentine’s Day in 2015. We had no idea the phenomenon we had on our hands. Because of its unusual combination of botanicals, its pale pink colour and unique bottle, we were unsure of how our creation would be perceived. Luckily, the incredibly unique flavours of our Love Gin stood their own ground and the popularity of this product with our customers was one we could have never have predicted.

Pink Love Gin

Love Gin has sweet and floral aromas as well as an indicting pale pink colour. All this come from the wide variety of botanical’s we use. In addition to the base gin ingredients, Love Gin incorporates eight exotic botanicals including red rose petals, marshmallow root, goji berries and whole hibiscus flowers. The romantically themed ingredients were at the core of our design to achieve a Gin that epitomised this sentimental occasion.

Two years on we are still continuously overwhelmed at how popular Love Gin has become whether on Valentine’s Day or not. It has outsold our other Gins three to one cementing its position in our core offering.

A Global Following

Love Gin has gained a global following from its humble origins in St. Andrews. We were amazed when it was graciously accepted by Glasgow and Edinburgh’s bartending scene. It has broken into the London Cocktail Scene, appeared in bottle shops across the USA and even has its own mural in Soho, Hong Kong.

So as you can see, for us Valentine’s Day is a celebration of Love in more ways than one. Join us and raise a glass to this spectacular Gin as we continue to share our passion.

Telling the Eden Mill story to thousands of visitors throughout the year, the Eden Mill tour guides’ days are powered by interactions with people. On any day, we can welcome visitors from as far afield as Japan, Australia, Canada, USA, or Motherwell. All want to learn more about our gin, whisky and beer and to soak in the passion that goes into crafting them.

The Eden Mill story… A day in the life

Each day begins with a quick walk around the brewery and distillery. Mainly to find out what the distillers and brewers have planned that day; but also to remind them to start our “tidy hours” for the many guests that will soon be coming through. We also try and do this immediately before each tour, because in a moment the brewery floor can become crowded with casks ready for filling. When the brewers and distillers are absorbed in their work, it can be easy to lose track of time. We don’t want visitors to be wandering through and seeing an area that’s not tidy. We’re pretty sure that if it weren’t for their coffees going cold, they would never leave the brew-floor or still room!

Once we’re up to speed on the goings-on and the gossip in the brewery and distillery, we begin setting up the shop and tasting area for the day’s visitors. This can involve everything from cleaning glasses and cutting up garnishes, ushering out any stragglers from the day before who perhaps imbibed a little too much and have spent the night sleeping it off in our tasting room (only kidding…). Next, we take a look at that day’s tour schedules to action any special requirements for the tours and give us time to prepare (both mentally and physically) for any hen-parties and stag-dos that may be coming our way later in the day. Telling the Eden Mill story is part of our culture and we love it.

Such a variety of visitors

Sometimes within a single day, sometimes even on a single tour, groups can be made up of a wide variety of folk. Individuals with specific interests in either gin, beer or whisky. Couples looking for a delightfully different way to spend an hour or two whilst on holiday. Large groups of students from nearby Universities looking for more in-depth information about the chemical processes involved in making the alcoholic beverages that are so close to their hearts. Our aim is to structure each tour so as to give everyone a great experience, whether they are looking for a good pint, a refreshing gin, a lovingly crafted dram, a wholehearted laugh, or some informative bits of trivia.

Always happy to help…

Guests often comment on the strong community spirit that flows through the brewery. None of our departments are guilty of “keeping themselves to themselves”. It’s a regular occurrence to find one of the brewers behind the bar in the tasting area, offering out samples of a new creation or a ‘work in progress’ to anyone that happens to be in the vicinity (be it staff, customers or customers’ dogs). This community spirit is also noticeable on a walk around the brewery. No-one is too busy to answer any questions, from the simple “How’s your day going?” to the more pressing “Is that dog drunk?”.

At the end of the day we will consider ourselves successful based on the responses we received from our visitors throughout the day. The smiles, the laughs, the marriage proposals…

Some of these things happened. Some I (slightly) exaggerated. The best way to find out which is to visit. We can’t wait to welcome you but if you can’t come to a tour, at least you can still buy your gin and beer online.

John Bruin
Retail Assistant (Tour Guide)
St Andrews