What they say

At the Hinch, (taken from Ballynahinch, meaning ‘town of the island’ in Gaelic) and set amongst County Down’s rolling green drumlin hills, we have created a distillery that has aspirations well beyond ‘the ordinary’, ambitions to be creative well beyond ‘the easily achieved’. County Down has a strong distilling history and from the late 18th to the early 20th century was home to seven Irish Whiskey producing distilleries. We are intensely proud to be part of the continuing story of County Down with the creation of the Hinch Distillery.

We are inspired by the distilling traditions and skills exchanged over the centuries during the ebb and flow of Gaelic peoples across the Irish Sea. Informed by the past but looking to the future we are creating Irish whiskeys that are reassuringly smooth yet very distinctively richer and bolder in character.

Our grain to glass distillery has been custom built to produce a very particular styles of Irish Single Malt Whiskey. We use water from the Mourne Mountains, traditional Irish mashing processes and are of course honoured to be part of a proud Irish history of triple distillation. Our whiskey Mash House contains not one but two mashing vessels, allowing us to maximize our flavour profiles.

This in turn allows our fermentation to deliver a greater array of flavours that ultimately flows through to our whiskeys.

Our stills have been specifically designed with reflux in mind, allowing the vapour and copper interaction the extra time it needs to build a more distinguished flavour profile.

Ninth Wave Gin is inspired by our love of Irish mythology, its links to the sea and the role it has played throughout the history of our country.

Legend tells of a mystical, magical place, invisible to the naked human eye, known as the ‘Otherworld’, where the Irish Sea God Mac Lir lived. The Ninth Wave was the barrier that separated the earthly world from the Otherworld. It was said to be greater than any other wave, and only by conquering the Ninth Wave could a mortal enter the Otherworld – where sickness and death did not exist. A place bestowing eternal youth and beauty, here, music, strength, life and all pleasurable pursuits came together.

Our Irish gin has a bottle design, in ocean blue glass, incorporating the symbolism of the Celtic Triskellion (triple spiral) which adorns many ancient monuments throughout the island. We thought a beautiful gin deserved a beautiful bottle! For our Ninth Wave Irish Gin we grow some of the botanicals on the Killaney Estate.

What I say

New make spirit from Hinch distillery, sampled during the #HinchDistillery Tweet tasting held in May 2021. The distillery generally sources its barley from Ireland and Scotland, but this depends on the quality of the crop after each annual harvest. They will only ever use the best malted barley available. Whilst the distillery only takes the heart of the first and third distillation, they retain almost all the second distillation. This allows more of the spicy, flavourful and fruity esters in the spirit to make it through to the final cut.

• ABV 63%
• Age 0 Years Old
• Bottler Official
• Bottling n/a
• Cask n/a
• Category New Make Spirit
• Cost n/a
• Origin Hinch Distillery
• Outturn n/a
• Region Ireland
• Released 2021
• Vintage 2021

My tasting notes

• Appearance Gin clear (0/20).
• Nose Fresh, cereal and solvents, lemon, sweet, apple, lemon puff biscuits, oaty, grassy hay, soft berries and cream.
• Taste Full-bodied, cereal, barley, creamy porridge, flapjacks, malted milk biscuits, Malteser, honey and orange
• Finish Medium, sweet sugary cereals, barley flour, delicate and light, lingering pine sap and chamomile. Very drinkable and plenty of backbone/structure from that malt.
• Overall Plenty of character and a well structured new make. A promising base spirit for experimenting with maturation and beer cask finishing.

Score n/a

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