276°
Posted 20 hours ago

Marylebone Gin, 70 cl

£9.9£99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

The Pleasure GardensDistillingCompany is situated less than a mile from the Mayfair-based RAF Club, a private charitable membersclubfor serving and former serving officers of theRAF and their families. JN: Right now there’s no ambition to create any new brands. If we did do a rum it would be under one of the existing brands. I’d love to do a spiced rum in the Berkshire range. We’ve got stills that are capable of distilling some quality rum so we’ll do some experiments and see what we get. I have stuff ageing on the estate down in Berkshire and in the Marylebone range I’ve got some rum casks from the Foursquare Distillery which are absolutely spectacular, so whether we play with rum casks or we develop a rum, we’ll have to see. For now, I need to focus and make sure that everything’s working smoothly in this difficult period. Looking for the best bars in Marylebone? Marylebone might fly under the radar as one of London’s drinking spots, but it boasts a wealth of cool bars if you know where to look.

For Johnny, who spent his school holidays traipsing the streets where these acres of lush parkland and bandstands once stood, they’re an evocative reminder of London at its finest. Part high-society, part sleaze, every inch an emblem of the Big Smoke. With the Berkshire brand, I had a desire to create a local brand that would make gin, but that could evolve to make spirits like vodka and rum. I live in West Berkshire now near the Yattendon Estate, a 9,000-acre estate that’s actually one of the largest Christmas tree growers in the U.K, which was great because I was keen to work with new and local flavours. So for the first batch we did, I was allowed to go out on the estate and chop down some Christmas trees and we used Norway Spruce in the recipe! It’s a dry gin but you’ll get a little bit of extra pine in there on the finish and I think it’s a nice balanced gin. We make it right now in a pot still called Harry, who resides in the wonderful The Royal Oak Pub & Hotel right in the heart of Yattendon. But I’ve got a lease on a bigger premises on the Yattendon Estate at the moment and we’re planning to put a bigger pot still in place so we can really start developing the brand and the range. I’m always trying to work on a couple of new flavours and once we have the larger pot still we can play with some rum and do some ageing and stuff like that. And then I’ve got a little limited edition I’m doing for the hotel as well. So 108 Bar and Brasserie is part of the Marylebone Hotel where the still is housed, and it’s part of an Irish hotel group called Doyle Collection. So we’ve got an extra Irish botanical going into a new recipe for them, and just 108 bottles will be created. The hotel has an off-licence and the bottles will be sold behind the bar. We hope it will be the first of many batches, but we shall see how we go.So what did I think of my flirtation with a miniature of Mary Le Bone? A pleasing aroma of chamomile, lemon balm and lime; but with a lingering spicy finish of coriander and cloves balancing sweet orange peel. Cassia bark provides the warmth, which would make this a lovely treat on a cold winter’s day. Nose: Very spicy and rich with juniper upfront and coriander seed, angelica root and lemon sherbet in support. In the end, Johnny settled on Pleasure Garden Distilling Company as a name for his venture, and 13 elegant botanicals to go into his flagship gin. These combine to form the refined liquid in the beautiful blue bottle that you unwrapped in this month’s Gin of the Month box. And what a liquid it is. The Marylebone Pleasure Gardens that inspired Johnny Neill’s amazing Gin of the Month started out as a bandstand and two bowling greens down the side of the local pub. Entry was free, even when several acres from a neighbouring estate were bolted on. Drinks are on the pricier side of things, though we’re still dreaming about the (uber) spicy Margarita we downed weeks ago. So, we think they’re worth it.

Marylebone is very much a London Dry Gin, and that means it’s distilled using traditional methods in a tiny pot still,” Johnny says. The botanicals are left to steep in wheat grain spirit overnight, and then carefully distilled, with only the best liquid – the ‘heart cut’ – diluted to a whopping 50.2% ABV. It’s a strength that echoes those early gins enjoyed in the pleasure gardens, though Johnny’s creation is much easier on the palate. Pour all the ingredients into a glass shaker filled with ice. Pour into a glass and garnish with grapefruit zest.Piccadilly, home of the Royal Air Force Club and 'home from home' for all our much loved Members & guests.⁠ Other botanicals include angelica root and liquorice root, as well as the warming finish of anise and hot cloves. Built in what used to be the outskirts of London – Chelsea, Marylebone and Vauxhall, to name just a few – the pleasure gardens of the 18th and 19th centuries were so much more than picnic spots. MoM: Why did you decide to branch out and create different gin brands in Marylebone London Dry Gin and Berkshire Botanical gin? While the majority of the gardens were well-lit with glittering lamps and laughter – novelist Tobias Smith wrote that the illuminations and magic lanterns “almost made me feel I was in some enchanted castle or fairy palace” – so-called ‘dark walks’, where paths snaked off into shadow, were prime hunting ground for predators of all kinds.

Johnny works with Isabella, his stunning 50 litre still. Named after Isabella Greenall, the starting point of the Neill adventures in gin, and Johnny’s own daughter, recently she’s found a new home: 108 Bar at the Marylebone Hotel, right in centre of the world’s greatest metropolis. She’ll stay there for the foreseeable future, churning out lovely batches of beautiful gin as patrons sit and drink alongside her. MoM: You’re one of the leading producers of flavoured gin. Why was this a category that interested you? We’re hoping to do some more foraging around the local Squares and gardens, hoping to find some more local London ingredients for new expressions. There are cherry blossoms, and orange blossoms, but certainly one problem I had was that Regent’s Park wouldn’t let me forage at all, as it’s part of the Crown Estate, so I’ve got the gardens to wander about – Paddington Square and Montague Gardens. The amount of botanicals isn’t great, but we haven’t got a massive still, so it should work nicely. You could say I grew up on gin,” laughs Johnny. “I’m descended from Thomas Greenall, who founded a brewery in 1762. Our family started distilling not long after, and my father, his uncle and my great grandfather all worked for the company. There’s a fair bit of history there.” Master of Malt: It seems like you’ve got distilling in your blood. Were you always destined to enter the spirits industry?The JJ Whitley range is more about my great grandfather, who was the son of a vicar, so he used to spend a lot of time in vicarage gardens around Cheshire and Lancashire, so we were looking for hedgerow and garden flavours. Johnny Neill has made quite the mark on the spirits industry in the last 15 years. The descendant of Thomas Greenall and JJ Whitley created the Whitley Neill Gin brand in 2005, building it from the ground up as one of the pioneers of the gin boom until it was acquired by Halewood Wines & Spirits in 2009. Working with the family-owned, UK-based distiller and distributor, he’s since developed brands such as Marylebone Gin , Berkshire Botanical Gin and revived the historic Gelston Irish whiskey name as director and owner of HJ Neill Spirits. I get geeky about everything. But it does means I can also be a bit of a fan girl. I take inspiration from all sorts of areas, not just gin related. Getting a DM from a favourite brewer to ask my opinion is always going to make me have a moment. And when the first Master Distiller added me as a friend on Facebook… Despite being relatively new, The Nest can already lay claim to being one of London’s best rooftop bars.

Halewood subsidiary The Pleasure GardensDistillingCompany created the new Centenary Edition gin with lemon balm and sweet orange. The bottle design features the RAF Clubs logo.He says, “The pleasure gardens gave me the inspiration to explore botanicals that are a little more floral in their outlook – chamomile, lemon balm and lime flower, with a hint of grapefruit to deliver a lovely, fresh, citrus-y zing.” So, Marylebone London Dry Gin reads, on the bottle, as ‘Mary-le-Bone,’ inciting an image, perhaps, of a London housemaid in the gardens on her afternoon off, flirting outrageously with a handsome young subaltern in uniform; or a pretty French maid – maybe called Marie – falling for a prince: in these gardens where rich and poor could, for the first time, mingle without drawing attention; anything was possible.

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment