Episode 228

New Gin in Town

Play Subscribe

Listen On:

Previous Episode Next Episode

New Gin in Town

Episode 228

What’s shakin’ cocktail fans?

Welcome to Episode 228 of The Modern Bar Cart Podcast! This time around, we have the distinct pleasure of sitting down face-to-face with two guests:

Jewel Murray, General Manager and Creative Director at The Gibson, one of DC’s most illustrious cocktail bars
Duncan Coltharp, Sales Representative and Cocktail Consultant with Mt. Defiance Cidery and Distillery in Middleburg, VA.

Our topic, if you couldn’t tell from the episode title, is gin. And not gin in general, but the process of creating and launching a gin from scratch in the year 2022. In a spirits category that seems to have pivoted itself into a blur, how does one create a gin that stands out from the herd? We tackle this question by examining Gin Nouveau, a brand new product from Mt. Defiance Cidery & Distillery. Eric had the distinct opportunity to watch the creation of this spirit from the ground-up, and we’re excited to try and distill down some of the biggest lessons from the process.

In this flavorful, botanically-robust interview and gin tasting with Duncan Coltharp and Jewel Murray, some of the topics we discuss include:

The process of creating a gin from scratch – at least the way they did it at Mt. Defiance – which involved a boozy rendition of vision boarding, tinctures, eyedroppers, tasting panels, cocktail tests, and more.
How Jewel thinks about gin when building cocktails for The Gibson’s renowned cocktail program, and why not all gins are a great fit for all cocktails.
Then, of course, we taste the Gin Nouveau by Mt. Defiance and walk through some of the highlights of the botanical bill and distilling process to trace the flavors and aromas we encounter back to their sources.
We also give you all the updates on a fantastic launch party for this spirit at The Gibson, which will be open to the public. So if you’re in DC or will be passing through on April 28th, 2022, please hit up the details on the show notes page to learn how you can be part of the action.
Along the way, we cover international gin trends from the past decade, cocktails featuring genepy and cassis, potato vodka from Mars, and much, much more.

Important Links

Featured Cocktail: The Gershwin

This episode’s featured cocktail is The Gershwin. To make it, you’ll need:

2 Ounces Gin
1/2 Ounce Simple Syrup
1/2 Ounce Ginger liqueur (something like Domaine de Canton would work here, or you could sub in a smaller amount of an intense ginger syrup, like the Pratt Standard ginger syrup available on ModernBarCart.com)
3/4 Ounce fresh lemon juice
2 Drops Rose water

Combine the gin, ginger liqueur, simple syrup, and lemon juice in a cocktail shaker with ice, give em a good, hard shake until everything is properly chilled and diluted, then strain into a stemmed cocktail glass, give it a nice spritz of rose water right over the top from an atomizer, and enjoy.

This is a simple, flavorful approach to what a gin sour can look like. It’s the ginger and rose water that do all the heavy lifting in this cocktail, and that’s something you don’t see much of when you go out to cocktail bars these days: simple riffs on classics where one or two small additions make all the difference.

The Gershwin is a fantastic cocktail to play around with as the weather warms up, and you shouldn’t have a hard time grabbing all these ingredients from your local liquor store and market. We hope you’ll tag us on social media @modernbarcart if you make one so that we can raise a digital glass together sometime soon.

This episode was made possible with editing and sound design by Samantha Reed, and gin and gin cocktail insights courtesy of Jewel Murray and Duncan Coltharp. This has been a Modern Bar Cart production, copyright 2022.

This episode is also brought to you by Near Country Provisions. If you live in the Mid-Atlantic and want to enjoy ethically raised (and delicious) meat from local farmers delivered to your door every month, then you need Near Country in your life.

Head over to NearCountry.com and enter the code BARCART when you sign up for your subscription to receive 2 free pounds of bacon or ground beef in your first delivery.

New Gin in Town

Featured Cocktail: The Gershwin

Leave a Reply Cancel reply