Second Son Gin

Our Gin of the Month for October is Second Son Gin which is distilled by John Whitlow locally to us at the Second Sons Distillery in Norley, Cheshire. By only making batches of around 30 bottles they are truly a micro distillery.

John Whitlow first started working at The Hollies Farm Shop when he was 16 years old where he helped out selling Christmas Trees at the weekend. At this time, John’s Dad had been supplying The Hollies with pumpkins and other home-grown vegetables for many years, building a great friendship with Richard Cowap, 2^nd generation of The Hollies family.

John first got interested in distilling whilst watching a television show called ‘The Moonshiners’. He says it was more the heritage that the outlaws were keeping alive that really intrigued him, rather than the lawlessness of what they were doing! After countless research and a visit to the Park Distillery whilst living in Canada, John applied for the relevant licences and began to experiment. After buying a still, John began to distill a rose and lemon flavoured vodka and after numerous batch runs of this, he turned his hand to gin.

Second Son Gin is based on a classic London Dry Gin recipe and is distilled using a single shot distillation process; all the botanicals are placed in the still at the same time to give it a fuller flavour. Second Son is distilled from a grain spirit and with a mixture of 10 different botanicals including Juniper from the Balkans, Spanish lemon peel and Cardamom seeds from India.

For the perfect serve, prepare two fresh raspberries and a few cardamom pods then add extra large ice cubes and chilled 1724 tonic.