The Jaunty Camper Gin

The Jaunty Camper Gin became a FINALIST in the 2021 Scottish Gin Awards in the Distilled Gin category just days after first release and is perfectly served with an original tonic and a sprig of fresh basil.

The Jaunty Camper Gin recipe was developed, as you might imagine, on a campervan road-trip back in the Spring of 2019 in a copper pot-still by the sea. The botanicals were chosen for flavour, but also for their story elements – I wanted the gin to taste of adventure with a grounding in the Scottish seaside village where I was born and yet have hints of the far-flung places I have visited over the years.

The trio of gin essentials are there – Juniper, Coriander and Angelica. Growing juniper in Scotland is a challenge that I haven’t taken on yet, but my home herb garden boasts a couple of different types of coriander (I love the Vietnamese one I have growing in my herb shutters in particular) and I have angelica doing well in there too. The botanicals in The Jaunty Camper Gin are not harvested from my garden, sadly, but I wanted that to have been a possibility for as many of them as possible.

Going to the seaside is so much a part of holidays from my childhood that I knew I wanted a seaside note to the gin. My family hail from Kyle of Lochalsh and fishing is very much the family business still, so some Scottish seaweed was an essential. The Dulse seaweed has a robust salty flavour and, when used in cooking, is paired with seafood and leafy greens so it was the perfect choice for a gin with a basil garnish pairing too.

Grains of Paradise are about far-flung shores and holidays I have taken, they are the hint of pepper and spice that keeps us going in the cold Scottish winters when planning sunny travel keeps us cheerful.

Black Cardamom pods are dried over open flames and bring a smokey campfire note to the gin – capturing that perfect moment when you have parked up for the night and have a well tended fire to sit around before the midges chase you indoors!

Life is nothing without a little sweetness and this comes from the Pistachio – the idea of including a nutty element comes from all the people who have gently suggested that there might be such a nutty note in my personality, particularly when I bought a classic VW campervan, and since my beloved campervan Jasmine is a lovely pistachio colour that helped me select the perfect nut for the finishing touch!

When it came to deciding on the alcohol percentage of the gin, I chose 42 for the taste … but also for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy because if Deep Thought wasn’t contemplating gin while calculating the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything then I’d be very surprised!

The recipe creation came from free wandering times, but the perfect pairing of the basil garnish came from the depths of lockdown when we were confined to our local radius and virtual gin tastings were the highlight of my days! The beautiful hand crafted herb shutters I had made for me by a very talented cabinetmaker in Strathaven were potted up with herbs I could source locally or grow from seed and there was basil in abundance. I had ventured out of my garnish comfort zone under the excellent guidance of some of my gin friends and struck upon the idea of basil in gin. It was, quite frankly, a revelation and the green herby undertone does wonderful things to the seaweed flavours in particular.

There is another essential element to The Jaunty Camper Gin, but it isn’t a botanical ingredient so much as a grounding in my local community. The Strathaven people have done what many communities have and rallied around in these challenging times and it has helped beyond measure to have friendly faces in local places and voices on the phone and digital connections to brighten the days. I wanted The Jaunty Camper Gin to reflect that and so the label is by local artistic duo Christine Allan and Anne Anderson - Christine first sketched Jasmine the Jaunty Camper as a colouring resource for local children during lockdown and went on to transform this image into watercolour paintings from which Anne created the label. The labels were first printed by Donald Cooper, another local business owner, whose wife Liz kept some green in my life with her local garden centre.

The wonderful herb shutters that house my basil collection were the bespoke creation of James Daniels and the gin wouldn’t have been possible without the talents and experience of McLean’s Gin – as well as featuring The Jaunty Camper as a guest gin in the range, Colin doorstep dropped his cocktail range to me more times than I care to admit through the darkness of lockdown. I must also mention wonderful local gin purveyors Jaro Design who created and delivered gin tasting events and offered a supportive ear when challenges arose in adjusting to our new normal.

These people are my team, but I must also thank my family – The McKerlich clan are a lovely bunch and the delight of a new addition, my granddaughter Nova, has done amazing things for my ability to see the joy in a world made smaller. Can I mention the dogs? I have two now and they bring me happiness and conversation at a safe distance in my local green spaces.

So there you have it – the botanical gin journey of The Jaunty Camper Gin, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!