Last week we tried the amazing new Christmas Gin from Four Pillars Gin whilst on our Surry Hills dining tour with a lovely American couple.
There is a sweet story behind the making of this spirit each Christmas. This gin is Cam’s - one of the three partners in the company - tribute to four things he loves: Australia, Christmas, gin and his late mum, Wilma.
Each year Wilma would use the 1968 Australian Women’s Weekly recipe to make her puds on Victoria Derby Day, while the rest of the family listened to the races. To this day, one of Cam’s great childhood memories is how his house would smell like Christmas over Cup Weekend.
So now each year the Four Pillars family gathers at their Healesville distillery in Victoria to make puddings to this recipe. Cam then distills them, and ages the resulting gin in Rutherglen Muscat barrels for a year. To finish, they add a slight tweak of Rutherglen Classic Muscat to round out the palate with a touch of richness.
““I found the recipe and thought it would be fun to start doing it with my girls every year. But even as I was buying all the ingredients at the shops (mixed peel, oranges, dried fruit) I just kept thinking how well it would all distill. And with juniper having such a great pine needle character to begin with, a Christmas gin just started to make sense really quickly.””
With juniper-led Christmas tree notes and plum pudding character it smells like gin and tastes like Christmas, and we release it each year on Derby Day. Four Pillar distill whole Christmas puddings in the botanical basket with amped up juniper, cassia and star anise.
Try a nip on the rocks with a slice of orange, or mix up a celebratory Christmas cocktail! What a great way to celebrate the holiday season.