- Hello, true fans and welcome back to another video,
today's video I'm gonna be talkin' all about
Bombay Sapphire Gin.
I'm gonna review 'er, I'm gonna tell ya what it tastes like
and then I'm gonna tell you in my opinion
which tonic waters work best.
As always I've I've done 'em off camera
so I've tried it with I think we did
15 different tonic waters for this one.
So tried it with that, that's what's coming up
in this video.
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Anyway let's waffle more gin.
Today's mention Bombay Sapphire
I'm finally rockin' this out on my channel.
I've given it some bad press over the last couple of years.
Not because I don't like it, simply because I think
in my world the gin has evolved.
It's gone into all these weird and wonderful flavours.
This is an absolute classic and it stands by that.
Now, let's give you a question first,
question of the video are you a Bombay Sapphire fan?
Have you drunk it since since the since the start
since when she launched or have you recently
found it, do you like Bombay Sapphire,
simple yes no in the comments below.
Right, Bombay Sapphire launched 1987 I do believe
and back in those days it was launched by Bacardi.
It was part of the Bacardi import folio.
Now the story behind it is, they actually created
and launched this gin to try and convert
vodka drinkers over to gin.
Because back in the those days the gin market
was pretty terrible, Gordons was perhaps
maybe in the premium upsell in a lot of pubs,
we had a lot of unbrands gins, quality wasn't there.
So Bombay got released and a little known fact
probably for a lot of you, actually I've mentioned
these guys so many times on these videos,
it's actually distilled by G&J Distillers
from up in Warrington.
Those guys, I keep mentioning,
contract distillers for so many gins in the world,
let alone the UK.
So that's who originally made it.
They only took it in house in 2014
when they opened Lakersoke Mill.
And if you haven't been there
I urge you to go 'cause that is on of the best
distillery tours in the UK.
It's a stunning venue, purpose built,
sort of half way in between Bassingstoke
and Andover and Hampshire.
So it's all where are we, southwest
sort of outskirts of London,
out near 25, in toward (mumbles)
if you got (mumbles) the back way go that way.
Anyway, so that's when they took it in house 2014.
Now, the reason I've given it some background
is it's such a delicate gin, it's one of the
very few gins that's still distilled by vapour.
So a lot of the gins these days
when their stills don't boil all of the botanicals
and all that and all of the heat is getting
all of the flavour out of those botanicals
and they collect the vapour and add to the alcohol.
Bombay do it slightly differently,
what they do is they boil it into a spirit.
And then all of the botanicals are in kind of nets,
mesh up the still, up the column.
So all the vapour is collecting all the botanicals,
all the flavours coming out that way.
So you can guess it's a much, much more
delicate gin than the big robust sort of dry gins out there.
And that's why for me it makes a great, great
sort of martini gin but it's actually so delicate
for me if you mix it with too much tonic water,
which a lot of places will do, then you kind of
lose the point of it.
So that's kind of Bombay in a nutshell.
Now to smell it, see you don't even get that massive
waft of juniper going up there.
It's such a delicate gin.
But it's a lovely gin if you drink it neat.
It's one of those that you can really handle
drinking neat.
You get a little bit of floral,
a little bit of citrus going down there,
little bit tiny, tiny little bit of heat.
Now Bombay also sort of smashed Gordons out of the water
with their marketing as well.
Of course, thinking in those days we didn't have Facebook,
YouTube, there was no clear way to get your message
out there about your products.
Newspapers advertisers, bit of TV if you had the budget
but that's it.
Now, Bombay came out with their iconic blue bottle
and they've had that ever since
but, they were the first genius to actually
list their botanicals.
And quite right Gordons and people like that
keep it a secret still, I don't know.
But Bombay what have we got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 botanicals
in here.
So we've got juniper, we've got lemon peel,
we've got coriander, angelica.
and they even tell you where they get it from as well,
juniper from Italy, lemon from Spain,
coriander from Morocco, angelica (mumbles).
And in this side we've got grains of paradise
from Africa, we've got cubeb with some java,
we've cassia bark from India and China,
almonds from Spain, and licorice from China as well.
So the really tell you all about the gin.
They're not hiding anything from you.
Now, I think that's told you as much
as I kind of wanted to tell you.
As to say it was-- most supermarkets will sell this now
16, 18, 20 quids a bottle, ease out there
you don't need affiliate links to get this gin
every supermarket sells this gin,
every wholesaler, every shop sells this gin
it's so out there.
The one thing I have to tell you about
Laversoke Mill and the volumes that they do,
now I've read this and I can't quite get my head
around this.
I've written the numbers down somewhere,
there we go, no that's not the number,
I think I've written in the blog,
Laversoke Mill produces 25,000,000 litres of this a year.
Now when you broke that down, I'll break it down
something different on here it's 2.3 million cases on there.
I think that it breaks down roughly to 100,000
bottles a day, I think that's the calculation
I did, 100,000 bottles of Bombay a day.
In my head, that is absolutely astronomically
massive and I don't quite comprehend whether that's true
or not.
But if it is, if that 25 million litres a year
is true, wow, you can see the size of that operation.
Anyway, tonic wise that's what you want to know.
I tried this with a whole load of tonic,
my top two though is Fever Tree Mediterranean,
I think because of the kind of little bit of citrus
going in there I think Fever Tree Mediterranean
is an absolute classic for that one.
But here's my surprise for you as well,
I'm really, really getting into Merchants Heart tonic waters
bring your camera angle and let's see this bottle
gets in there.
I really think Merchants Heart are
some brilliant tonic waters.
Their effervescence that's the posh word for you,
the bubbles, the fizz, is just astronomical.
It's one of the most fizziest tonic waters out there,
it's made by Suntory Beam Global and imported.
Strangely I can only ever find it
in Salisbury at the moment but they've got
quite a few in the range.
This is their floral tonic, a little bit of citrus
in there.
And I think for me that's without doubt
my favourite combination for that,
Bombay Sapphire and that kind of Merchants Heart
floral tonic water.
And they've also got pink peppercorn,
they've got a natural and a light,
and they've got a ginger ale, they've got hibiscus as well,
(mumbles) has got the whole range.
But for me that floral tonic water
it's about one pound 20 a bottle with Bombay Sapphire
I think that's an absolute classic gin.
Anyway I hope you enjoyed that.
In the next video I've got something really cool
to show you that will change the way
I do gins in the future.
And then after that I have got bathtub gin.
So I'll catch you next time.