You can say one thing for the ginaissance, topers are spoilt for choice. Gins now come in a variety of colours and a wide range of flavours. The choice is bewildering and for me, at least, some of the mixes of botanicals are so bizarre as to make me want to run a mile from them. I have nailed my colours to my mast and declared on innumerable occasions that a juniper heavy gin is what floats my boat. But occasionally I see something which is so intriguing that I want to try it.

Wrecking Coast Clotted Cream Gin certainly comes into this category. My bottle came courtesy of Drinkfinder’s wonderful online store, the digital manifestation of that treasure house of gins that is Constantine Stores down in Cornwall, which I will soon be revisiting.

And what a wonderfully designed bottle it is, a clear, oblong lump of heavy glass. The label is a work of art, literally, being designed by a local Cornish artist, John Blight and depicts a sailing ship being tossed around by the heavy seas. Not for nothing was the coastline around Tintagel on Cornwall’s northern side known as the wrecking coast. Many a ship fell foul of the combination of high waves and strong currents and were sent to Davy Jones’ locker after dashing against the rocks. Others were lured to their destruction by the locals, anxious to get their hands on the cargo.

A must for any visitor to the county is a Clotted Cream scone tea. Delicious but I had never considered clotted cream as a vital constituent for a gin. That’s probably why Avian Sandercock, Craig Penn, Steve Wharton, and Daniel Claughton are in business and I’m just a gin drinker. But turning a lumpy, baked cream into something that would enhance a gin proved rather tricky. Heating it separates the crust from the cream and ruins the flavour. The quartet had to develop their own hand blown, glass vacuum still to ensure that the essence of the taste of clotted cream survived being mixed with neutral spirit and the whole distillation process. Because of the complexity of the process they can only produce their particular take on gin in small batches. My bottle came from batch number 51.

There are nine other botanicals – is clotted cream really a botanical? – in the mix; juniper(yes, it is there), vanilla, stone fruit, coriander seed, camomile flower, cinnamon, cassia bark, grains of Paradise, and liquorice. I had in my mind that this gin would be on the sweet side but on removing the artificial cork stopper attached to a gold cap, intended to signify the colours of the cream, I was surprised to find that the predominant notes which assaulted my nostrils were of spice.

To the taste, the initial sensation was that of sweetness but the juniper soon came into play, followed by more spicier notes. And there is a bit of a kick at the end when the peppers make their presence known. It is a complex gin and I found that after recovering from the shock that the taste wasn’t quite what I had expected, I grew to appreciate its subtlety and complexity. I found adding a tonic, it does louche slightly, gave the chance to see another side of the gin, the more subtler flavours overpowered, perhaps, by the big guns, when tasted neat, having the freedom to stretch out a tad.

At 44% ABV it is on the more powerful side of the gin strength spectrum. It is not an unpleasant gin but the distillers seem to have gone to a heck of a lot of trouble just to get a marketing edge. I think I prefer my clotted cream on my scones.

Until the next time, cheers!