The days are getting longer and dare I say it, sunnier. This can only mean that spring is rearing it’s big, beautiful, flowered head and bringing with it some new-seasoned cheer into what was, for some, a fairly challenging winter. As blossoms bloom and bouncing lambs struggle to get an even footing, people begin to remember a life without grey clouds and three layers of thermals. We can now say “Be gone!” to the heavily-peated Islay whiskies that make you feel as if you’ve just licked the remnants of a bonfire, “Vanish!” to the palliative hot toddy’s, downed in the hopes that you can somehow both recover from a cold, whilst still drinking yourself silly and “Hiyyaa!” to the revitalizing, playful and spirit-lifting gin-based cocktails that make beach body diets and kale smoothies worth enduring.
Spring is about long, luscious drinks adorned in ridiculous garnishes that are sipped on a sunny afternoon. It’s about embracing everything floral, fruity and over-the-top that we’ve forgone these last six months for the sombre and serious drinks of a bare winter. Which is why I’ve recently become quite taken with Greenall’s unabashed, fruity and slightly sweet Wild Berry Gin. The Aroma is of jammy raspberries and blackberries, with the actual taste expressing a more traditional juniper-focused flavour with a heavy grind of black pepper. The overall experience is, admittedly, slightly pervasive, however, for just £12 for a 70cl bottle at Tesco, this fruity little number would be a great shout for any springtime cocktail parties with a floral or fruity focus.
This gin might not be winning any spirit-awards, but Winter is for snobs who need snide remarks to forget their cloud-shrouded existence anyway, whilst glorious Spring is for carefree frivolity, and jugs and jugs of judgement-free Tom Collins. So begin to fantasise about your many picnics, laid out on whatever the Instagram-colour-of-choice will be this year (or if you’re anything like me, then the tattered airplane blanket you nicked from that New Zealand school trip so many years ago), just make sure that the image in your mind includes a frosted bottle of Greenall’s Wild Berry Gin, fresh flowers and plenty of smiles.
Author Bio:
Melanie Chenoweth is a London based, freelance food writer and photographer. If you can eat it, she’ll snap it. Then eat it. Then write about it.
Photographs courtesy of Greenall’s Gin
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