This Tropical Old Tom Gin is summer in a glass!

Wishing you could be by the sea, with an umbrella cocktail in hand? This beautiful gin, vibrant with the tropical flavours of passion fruit and guava, will bring the sunshine straight to your living room. Craft Gin Club’s panel of experts have selected this tasty expression to be August’s Discovery Gin. 

What exactly is a Discovery Gin? In addition to the Gin of the Month boxes Craft Gin Club sends its members, a committee of experts choose a gin to satisfy gin drinkers with a taste for adventure. This August, Porter’s Tropical Old Tom Gin will be available on the Craft Gin Club online shop to give our members a taste of the tropics. 

A classic juniper base is lifted by tropical notes of passion fruit, guava and white tea, which are cold-distilled to retain their juicy freshness.

Juniper, Coriander, Angelica, Liquorice, Almond, Cinnamon, Cassia, Lemon, Orange, Passion Fruit, Guava, White Tea

When you hear the word ‘tropical’, the city of Aberdeen may not be the first place that springs to mind -- but once you try August’s amazing Discovery Gin, bursting with the fruity flavours of passion fruit and guava, you’ll never think of Scotland’s northernmost city the same way again. 

Porter’s Tropical Old Tom Gin was selected by our crack tasting panel for its vibrant, tropical flavours. But how did three friends from Aberdeen come to distill a gin more at home on the white sand beaches of the Caribbean than the rocky north coast? 

For Josh, Alex and Ben, it all started with a shared passion: craft spirits, and the beautiful cocktails that could be made from them. These three were so passionate, in fact, that they decided to start their own distillery! Setting up shop in the basement of an Aberdeen cocktail bar, they’ve been handcrafting creative spirits ever since.

The secret to Porter’s range of unique, flavourful gins? A distilling technique that was three years in the making. 

Josh, Alex and Ben knew from experience that traditional distillation equipment -- in particular copper pot stills -- can limit distillers in terms of what ingredients they can use. This is because pot stills get very hot, and more delicate botanicals can ‘cook’ distillation, ruining their flavour. 

For the co-founders of Porter’s, that ruled out many of their favourite ingredients. Rather than cross flavours  they loved off the list or compromise on the quality of their gin, they spent three years consulting with scientists at the nearby University of Aberdeen to build a cutting-edge vacuum still. 

The three stills in Porter’s microdistillery use a vacuum to lower the temperature at which distillation can take place, allowing the team to craft gins with delicate botanicals most distillers must leave aside. It’s this ‘cold distillation’ method we have to thank for the juicy, tropical hit of passion fruit and guava in August’s very special Discovery Gin. 

These bold tropical flavours are balanced in this bottle by delicate white tea leaves in a super-smooth Old Tom-style gin. 

Wondering how an Old Tom gin is different from a London Dry?

Old Tom is actually an older style of gin, with roots in the gin craze in the 18th century. Made on rudimentary equipment by often inexperienced distillers, the gin of this time period could taste pretty bad. Not wanting to throw out batch after batch (and the associated profits), distillers would sweeten their spirit with sugar before selling it. 

As the science of distillation progressed and its results became more reliably palatable, the unsweetened London Dry style became dominant. But bartenders have long prized Old Tom gins for their smooth mouthfeel and flavourful character. With its punch of vibrant flavour and subtle sweetness, August’s Discovery Gin is a very modern take on an old style -- and either of the serves below will transport you straight to a glitzy hotel on a tropical sea (in your imagination, at least!).

Explore our Discovery Gin range for a selection of spirits designed to blow your mind (and your tastebuds)!