Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin Ceramic Bottle
Drumshanbo · The Shed Distillery
Drumshanbo's Ceramic Bottle expression is the same celebrated liquid — slow-distilled with oriental botanicals including gunpowder tea, star anise, and meadowsweet — but housed in a striking hand-glazed blue ceramic vessel that feels like holding a flask of alchemical mercury. The gin itself is a study in transformation: each sip shape-shifts between bright citrus and deep spice, never settling, always quicksilver. It's craft with restless, mercurial energy, perfectly at home among this issue's boundary-pushing selections.
Nose
An opening salvo of gunpowder green tea — smoky, vegetal, almost metallic — layered over fresh grapefruit zest and star anise. Juniper arrives mid-breath, resinous and assertive, flanked by meadowsweet honey and a whisper of dried lime blossom. There's an intriguing mineral quality, like rain on slate, that ties the botanicals into a shimmering, mercurial whole.
Palate
Silky entry that immediately splits into two currents: a bright citrus vein of lemon and grapefruit, and a deeper, spice-driven undertow of cassia bark, coriander seed, and white pepper. The gunpowder tea asserts itself mid-palate with a lightly tannic, almost oxidative edge — quicksilver in texture, shifting from sweet to savoury with every moment. Orris root provides a powdery anchor, while juniper stays steady and herbaceous throughout.
Finish
Medium-long and surprisingly warm. The peppery spice lingers alongside a gentle grapefruit bitterness and a trailing note of green tea smoke. A final flash of lemon oil evaporates cleanly, leaving a dry, slightly metallic afterglow that recalls the liquid-metal theme of this issue.
Cocktail Suggestion
The Mercury Drop — [object Object]
Food Pairing
The gunpowder tea in the gin finds a direct echo in the delicate smokiness of tea-smoked duck, while the spirit's citrus brightness mirrors a sharp grapefruit gastrique spooned over each slice. The duck's rich, mineral-edged meat — seared to a rosy center — amplifies the gin's peppery warmth, and the gastrique's sweet-sour tang parallels the meadowsweet and cassia spice notes. A side of watercress dressed in lemon oil completes the circuit, giving a fresh, herbal counterpoint to the smoky, mercurial interplay.
In the tiny lakeside town of Drumshanbo, County Leitrim, PJ Rigney built The Shed Distillery in a restored nineteenth-century ironworks — a place where metal was once shaped by fire. That alchemical heritage runs through every batch of Gunpowder Irish Gin. The signature botanical, Chinese gunpowder green tea — so named because each leaf is hand-rolled into tiny pellets resembling gunpowder shot — was discovered by Rigney during travels along the ancient Silk Road. Combined with oriental botanicals like star anise and meadowsweet gathered from the hedgerows around Lough Allen, it creates a gin of perpetual transformation. The Ceramic Bottle edition wraps this mercurial spirit in a hand-glazed vessel inspired by the blue-and-white porcelain that once traveled the same trade routes as the tea itself. It's a bottle that asks you to hold quicksilver in your hands.
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