COCKTAIL OF THE WEEK: COTSWOLDS GIN JIVIN' WITH JANIS JOPLIN

Cotswolds’ spirit still distills the sprit of the 60s for the distillery’s single malt whisky. Named Janis after the era’s blues screamer, Janis Joplin, the spirit still recalls one of Joplin’s most famous tunes and one of the most iconic rock songs of the Woodstock era, “Piece of my Heart”. And so the Cotswold distillers do, taking the “heart” of the distilled spirit while repurposing the “heads” and the “tails” not suitable for drinking. 

English whisky may be at the heart of the still Janis, but at the heart of singer Janis was Southern Comfort, the American bourbon-based liqueur. 

Joplin first discovered the sweet sipper sometime around June 1966 when her band Big Brother and the Holding Company began opening shows for the Grateful Dead in San Francisco. The Texas native began an affair with the Dead’s lead singer Pigpen who told Rolling Stone Magazine in 1970, “I turned her onto Southern Comfort, man. I told her one day, ‘Tex, try some of this.’ She said, ‘Oh man, that’s good.’ We used to get drunk and play pool together. She beat me 80 percent of the time.”  

After that, the heavy-drinking, hard-drugging Queen of Rock would rarely be seen without a bottle of her favourite drink and was not shy to speak of her affection for SoCo. In the summer of 1968 she quipped to Time magazine “I may own that company some day”. Concert venues would stock her dressing room with bottles and local spirits shops would send cases to the concert halls she played in their towns.

Joplin even told the New York Times that the bourbon bomb helped earn her a whole lot more. “That fur coat… you know how I got it? Southern Comfort! Far out! I had the chick in my manager’s office Photostat every goddam clipping that ever had me mentioning Southern Comfort, and I sent them to the company, and they sent me a whole lotta money… That was the best hustle I ever pulled — can you imagine getting paid for passing out for two years?” 

No, Janis. We and the hardworking experimenters at the Cotswold Distillery certainly can’t. But then again, we’d rather our tastebuds fly high with a Cotswold’s Aviation than our heads reaching new heights on the copious amounts of Southern Comfort and whatever other little pieces of her heart that ran through Janis’ veins.