If you’re a fan of my blog that happens to be Mexican, chances are you’ll know it was Dia de Muertos – The Day of the Dead – just the other day. Despite sounding a bit bleak, it’s actually a celebratory day to honour your loved ones who’ve passed.

To celebrate, Hendrick’s Gin’s PR peeps sent me a bottle of their finest along with a super cute ‘scary’ cupcake.

I’d never heard of the brand before but am pretty taken with their branding. As it’s produced in very small batches in Scotland and makes use of an unusual distillery process, Hendrick’s likes to play up the whole ‘we’re so odd and quirky’ angle with an ‘it’s not for everyone’ tagline and a creepy-cool ‘field guide’ that would make Edward Gorey proud. This sits just fine with me as I’m actually a big Gorey fan and have a small collection of his books that I plan on terrifying my children with one day.

One of my favourite Gorey books is The Gashlycrumb Tinies. It’s an illustrated tale of 26 children who all die horrible but somewhat mundane deaths. Think ‘E is for Ernest who choked on a peach… F is for Fanny sucked dry by a leech’. Hendrick’s, however, might appreciate the very last page: ‘Z is for Zillah for drank too much gin’.

But ja, getting back to Hendrick’s. I poured out two fingers on ice for both myself and my flatmate Kim (who’s a big gin fan, actually) and we both agreed it was pretty darn good. Made by hand using a carter-head still that bathes the gin’s botanicals in vapours as opposed to boiling them, Hendrick’s hero ingredients are rose and cucumber.

Could Kim and I pick this up? Nope. We’re a bit uncivilised that way. To us it just tasted like gin. But good gin. Good gin in a very pretty bottle with a super cool ‘oh so peculiar’ brand identity. Then, (‘cos we’re double uncivilized), we tossed in a bit of Stoney Zero and hot damn was that delish!

Thanks Butter Knife PR – and cheers!

Love, love

Leigh