Fiona’s ready made way to toast festive season

Enjoying a refreshing and memorable cocktail at home during the Christmas and New Year celebrations has never been easier due to an exciting creation of original spirits by one of Northern Ireland’s most successful craft distilleries.

Shortcross Gin, produced at Rademon Craft Distillery outside Crossgar, the small distillery which effectively launched the craft gin revolution here in 2012, has just uncorked a range of five ready-made cocktails for would-be mixologists - the term for a bartender who specialises in mixing classic cocktails,

“Making a range of cocktails with our gin for visitors has always been a big part of what we do at the distillery,” says Fiona Boyd Armstrong, managing director of Rademon Craft Distillery.

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Fiona owns the distillery, located outside the Co Down town, with husband David, the master distiller who developed the gin from unique botanicals and fresh water sourced from the sprawling family-owned Rademon Estate and in particular its fertile walled garden.

“We’ve been making cocktails for groups on tours to the distillery to enjoy over many years but the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns meant the tours have had to be paused. The cocktails always proved popular and also enabled us to show the many ways to enjoy our range of premium gins.

“In addition, we have used the cocktails for professional mixologists or bartenders here and from further afield and many have come up with ideas of cocktails for us to consider. Lockdown and the circuit breaker stopped this process and also hit our long established business with bars, hotels and restaurants in Northern Ireland, Britain, the Republic of Ireland and indeed further afield. This meant we had to depend on sales to supermarkets and off-licences and to look for other ways to widen our business,” she explains.

The decision to produce ready-made cocktails in bottles was also influenced by people who had visited the distillery before the coronavirus pandemic and had asked if the cocktails they had enjoyed could be purchased especially from the company’s online shop. It’s another fine example of an enterprising food and drink company stepping up investment in original products for a different market sector against an immensely challenging background for the hospitality industry.

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“These requests indicated that there is clearly a market for ready-made cocktails that we could use our knowledge and expertise to help in growing the business at a very difficult time for everyone in our industry,” Fiona explains. “Further market research including discussions with leading retailers encouraged us to start work on creating the recipes for the cocktails, which could also be marketed extensively and sold to retailers and our international network of distributors as well as our successful online shop.”

The five cocktails created in-house feature unique recipes from Fiona and David using Shotcross Gin are: Bramble; Gin Old Fashioned; Modern Martinez; Classic

Aviation; and Elderflower Negroni. They are the first bottled cocktails from a Northern Ireland craft distillery.

“Our choice of flavours is based on the cocktails which we like and those especially popular with visitors to the distillery,” Fiona continues. “While I love the Bramble, David’s favourite is the Elderflower Negroni. Our objective was to create original and luxury cocktails that could be enjoyed at home as well as in bars. Each bottle contains two serves.”

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Among the most innovative and enterprising companies in the local food and drink scene, Shortcross was the first craft gin produced in Northern Ireland in more than a century when it was launched in 2012.

The distillery has since won over 30 high-profile industry awards including UK Great Taste, the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and the International Gin Awards. Gin is distilled using a vapour infusion technique which reflects David’s technical expertise from his previous and exacting career as an aerospace engineer.

Attention to detail is a feature of the ambitious and hugely successful business. Shortcross Gin, furthermore, is now exported to more than 30 markets worldwide including the US. Among other innovative spirits produced by the company is a sugar-free pink gin, the only one distilled on the island of Ireland and the recently launched cask matured gin. The new Irish whiskey is expected to be launched next year.

Shortcross is also found on the shelves of airport duty free stores in the UK, Ireland and beyond. The distillery has invested heavily in striking copper pot stills for distilling spirits and in a purpose-built visitor centre that was hugely popular with tourists and local visitors before the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent lockdowns.

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