Craft Gin Club is a monthly gin subscription box that send members a full-sized bottle of gin with mixers, snacks, and the magainze "Ginned!". The magazine contains information on the gin and how to make the gin cocktails along with other recipes for the gin. The gin of the month this month is the award-winning Brass Lion Singapore Dry Gin. This gin won Gold at the World Gin Awards this year. The box features a variety of sweet and spicy snacks that pair with the taste of Singapore.
Brass Lion Distillery have created this Singapore Dry Gin, and it is sold exclusively in the UK through the Craft Gin Club. The gin is described as tropical with lemongress, mandarin, ginger flower and tamarind. It is citrus and sweet. For the monthly tonic, the Twisted Soft Drinks tonic water in Thai Lemon & Lemongrass is the perfect pairing for the gin. This tonic water is described as not bitter like many tonics on the market.
For the pairing snacks, I received Uncle Saba's Poppadmons in sweet chilli, Wild Cassava Chips in sweet chilli and onion, Brown Bag Crisps in tiger prawn with a hint of chilli and lime, and The Dormen sweet chilli peanuts.
Uncle Saba's poppadoms are vegan-friendly and are a balance between sweet and spice. I found them to be delicious and the perfect pairing snack with gin cocktails. The Wild brand are environmentally-friendly in their farming practices and supply chain, and the chips are vegan-friendly as well. Cassava is a root vegetable that is similar to potatoes, and the flavour of these is sweet chilli and onion and also went very well with the gin.
Brown Bag Crisps is a small brand from Surrey that create creative flavours. These crisps are not vegetarian, so I did not eat them. I gave them away.
The Dormen produce snacks that are perfect for the bar. The snacks are produced in small batches. The sweet chilli peanuts were delicious, and the mix included dried fruit and peanuts with a chilli kick. They were delicious paired with the gin.
The next product received was a mixer - Upsteam Grapefruit and Bergamont. Some subscribers would have received the other flavour, which is Strawberry and Lychee. Upstream create their products using natural flavours and spring water. The drinks are lightly sparkling and zero sugar. A recipe in the magazine provides an opportunity to use the mixer with the gin.
The next product received was Martin Frobisher's fruit juice in cherry flavour. The juice was used for the cocktail of the month along with the syrup received, Singapore Fling cocktail syrup. I love cherry, and I absolutely loved the Martin Frobisher cherry fruit juice.
Pineapple and pink peppercorn garnishes were also included with this month's box, and these paired well with the gin and tonic mix.
The box's mixers and snacks were a win for me this month, although the way that these were used were not completely to my liking. I would have used more fruit or less gin as I found them to be a bit too strong and over-powering for my tastes. They tasted delicious on my own, though, so I expect that less gin would have suited me better. I may have to order some of the mixers and snacks.
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