The Cocktail Spirit with Robert Hess

We were fortunate to have Sean Harrison come through town a while back. Sean is a great guy, and clearly has a lot of fun making gin at the Plymouth distillery in Plymouth England.

Great interview!  Plymouth not only has history, but as Sean mentioned, is THE gin used in many of the classic cocktails.  It’s interesting that Harry Craddock specifies Plymouth in several Savoy cocktails.  Remember, at the time Plymouth began distilling, one of every four houses in London was a gin shop.  It just goes to show what a great product they make!

I am looking forward to getting some Plymouth Sloe Gin this year, and would love to try the Navy Strength, but I doubt I’ll see it this side of the Atlantic any time soon.

Yes, with a history reaching back to 1793, Plymouth gin is indeed a long one. I’d love to find out more about it’s very early history, I expect that one could end up with a fairly interesting novel if they followed the history of Plymouth gin from it’s early beginnings to modern day.

Sean didn’t happen to share his preferred ratios for the Lillet martini, did he? I’ve really fallen in love with Lillet of late and was happy to hear him mention it. I’ve been experimenting with using it to replace sweet vermouth.

I’ve always been a big fan of gin (gin and tonics always been the goto drink for me) so as I become more interested in cocktails, it’s really opening my eyes to find how many people think they don’t like it. Then don’t realize the drink I just gave them have gin as the dominant spirit!

Stevi, No, Sean didn’t share his ratios. I should have asked!

Gin is one of the best spirits to make cocktails with, it has a wonderful array of subtle flavors that it brings to the mix that are great to balance other flavors against.

-Robert