Review Posts

Greenall's London Dry Gin

Greenall's is produced by G&J Distillers, who claim to be the oldest distiller in Britain - although if I had a bottle from every distillery that said that, I could open a bar. The original recipe - still in use today - was created in 1761 by Thomas Dakin, which certainly predates any distillery ...

CaféDirect Tarrazu Reserve

CaféDirect have had a bit of a rebrand recently; the packaging certainly looks crisper and more modern, and they've dropped the rather curious "made the small way" slogan that bemused me so much when I reviewed their Colombia coffee a few years ago. Then again, they've replaced it with "Ridiculously Good Coffee" which is, ...

Liverpool Gin

Liverpool Gin started life as a small independent gin distillery in 2013, set up by John O'Dowd and Mark Hensby (of the Liverpool Organic Brewery). By 2016, it had become part of the Halewood International empire; a large drinks producer and distributor that already had a number of gins in its portfolio, along with vodkas, ...

Empress Ale

I have to admit to being nervous whenever I hear that a beer has been designed for a specific market or niche. Experience has taught me that the resulting drink often bears all the hallmarks of being created by a committee composed of the Marketing Department and the Finance Department resulting in, well, ...

Bridgehead Bytown Boom

One of the great pleasures of travelling is exploring local food and drink; for obvious reasons my focus tends to be more on the drink than the food! Local beer is always top on my list, but often there will be local wines, spirits and - increasingly - coffee to be explored too. ...

Magic Spells Brewery Tour At Home

Magic Spells Brewery are a new East London brewery, very firmly at the 'craft' end of the beery spectrum. They have a familiar enough backstory, starting with (a rather substantial 1/2 barrel) homebrewing background 3 years ago and finally going commercial at the start of this year. At the moment they're still 'gypsy brewing' ...

Masons Dry Yorkshire Gin

Masons are one of the new generation of gin distillers, having been founded just 4 years ago - they launched their first gin on World Gin Day 2013. A few years ago, Karl Mason sent his wife a message via Facebook asking her to have a G&T ready for him when he got ...

Redber Old Brown Java Dark Roasted Coffee

Redber is a coffee roastery based in Guildford, although for those of us not in the area they are widely available online - either through their own website or (as in this case) via Amazon. Their range is fairly extensive and reasonably priced, and after stumbling across this one in the Amazon coffee aisle ...

Badger - An American Venture

One of the things I noted about Badger back when I did a review of their range was that they'd always managed to resist the lure of the "craft dollar", sticking to solid, traditional beers (albeit with a range twice the size it should be). Obviously they took my comments to heart, because they're definitely ...

The Botanist Gin

It only seems right to start my gin reviewing with the spirit that lured me, and much like with my first whisky, it's made by an Islay distillery. The Botanist is produced by the folks at Bruichladdich, so they know a thing or two about making spirit. They are also noteworthy in the world of ...