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Discover, Sip, Repeat: Your Adventure Begins Here
The passion for our shop began by meeting fantastic producers on our travels arounds the UK. We discovered their passion for the drinks they are creating and wanted to give them an outlet to sell their delicious tipples. Recently, while at a Christmas event in London Olympia met two such producers, Tan Dowr Vodka and Whistler’s Storm.
So, in this week’s blog we look at these two producers to discover more about the drinks they are creating, because we were blown away by the quality and flavours of the drinks when we had the opportunity to sample them!
First up is the Cornish Sea Salt Vodka by Tan Dowr. Their story begins with inspiration; and this came in the form of the beautiful and rugged coastline and the sea salt that fills the air. They also took inspiration from the outstanding produce that surrounds them.
When developing the brand they turned to the old celtic Cornish language and Native Americans, something we haven’t encountered before! Native Americans used to trade animal fur and skins with Europeans in exchange for alcohol. To ensure that the alcohol wasn’t watered down they used to pour it over a fire. If the flames died down they knew it had been watered down, hence the name fire water. Tan Dowr is the Cornish translation of firewater, but this vodka is too good to be pouring over fire!
The recipe for the spirit was again greatly inspired by Cornwall, and especially the sea. Storm beaten rocks to beautiful golden beaches, there is almost a saline quality to the air. It is this saline element that they wanted to incorporate into their vodka. Salt is known as a flavour enhancer in food and has the same principle in drinks, think classic food pairings such as pork scratchings with a beer or olive brine in a martini.
The team have taken this methodology and incorporated it into their vodka. The vodka has been tripled distilled to 96% to create an extremely smooth spirit, then blended with spring water and Cornish Sea Salt to increase the levels of complex flavour. It drinks really well straight, with tonic or perfectly in a Dirty Martini!
Tea could possibly be my favourite drink, so upon my discovery of a tea infused liqueur I was extremely excited!
Whistler’s Storm is a local producer based in Birmingham and was launched by founder Dom. He developed a passion for tea during a trip to Kerala in India, discovering the beautiful plantations and the amazing flavours that the tea leaves produce.
His other passion was the production of liqueurs. In 2020 he started experimenting with different types of liqueurs and while doing so decided to incorporate the infusion of tea leaves. He tried many combinations and techniques and found some great combinations along the way, as well as learning more about tea and liqueurs. He settled on two different styles, cold brewed Assam and Earl Grey.
For the Assam black Tea liqueur he uses second flush tea leaves that are picked between May and June. They are known to be the best quality tea leaves and give the liqueur a beautiful malty note. The second is made using Earl Grey and as you can expect has those beautiful perfumed elements from the bergamot and cornflower. Both liqueurs have gone on to win awards.
We would love to hear if you would like to give these a try? Drop us an email atinfo@splitsdrinks.co.uk or message us on social media. We have a limited number in store if you would like to try a bottle or two.
