Salcombe Gin collaborates with Michelin-starred chef Paul Ainsworth on 'Daring' gin

Salcombe Gin has launched Daring, the seventh limited-edition release in the Voyager Series, created in collaboration with Michelin-starred chef Paul Ainsworth.

Inspired by Ainsworth’s dish, ‘A Tale of Porthilly’, Daring is distilled with whey and foraged Cornish botanicals, showcasing the spirit of the wild Cornish coast.

Ainsworth’s Michelin-starred Padstow restaurant, Paul Ainsworth at No6, is a modern British dining destination and has become synonymous with the highest quality ingredients, whilst incorporating the very best of Cornwall’s extensive larder. One of the restaurant’s signature dishes, ‘A Tale of Porthilly’, celebrates the Cornish oyster sourced from nearby Porthilly Farm.

The limited-edition gin has been developed to mimic the rich, smooth mouthfeel and fresh umami and zinc like properties of the Cornish oyster. Taking further inspiration from Ainsworth’s carefully balanced dish, the spirit combines the use of fennel, apple and lime to replicate the accompanying salad and create a complex flavour profile, reminiscent of Ainsworth’s dish.

To recreate the soft, yet rich mouthfeel properties of the Cornish oyster in ‘A Tale of Porthilly’, Salcombe Distilling Co. first created a distillate using milk whey, a by-product of dairy production. Using sustainably sourced whey from Briddlesford Dairy, the same dairy that Ainsworth and his team use to make the butter they serve at Paul Ainsworth at No6, a ‘milk vodka’ base was created and blended in a 65:35 ratio with English wheat grain spirit, to create the perfectly smooth and rich base spirit for Daring.

The blended base spirit is combined with 14 hand-selected botanicals, including fresh fennel, Cornish apples, seaweed, blood orange and fresh lime before being distilled to the exacting one-shot method and blended with oyster leaf and seaweed distillates, which have been distilled separately to capture the perfect balance of flavour.

“With our shared love of the South West and the rich abundance of flavours the region has to offer, it has been a privilege to work with Paul and his team to create this unique gin,” says Angus Lugsdin, Co-Founder of Salcombe Distilling Co. “The name ‘Daring’ not only takes its name from a Salcombe Fruiter but reflects our shared approach to create a gin inspired by the Cornish coast and designed to mimic the flavours of Paul’s world class dish ‘A Tale of Porthilly’.”

“Living here in Cornwall, we wanted to evoke a sense of being by the sea and include local flavours and botanicals that we enjoy in our restaurants,” explains Paul Ainsworth. “Within the ingredients of ‘Daring’ you can taste the saltiness of the sea depicted by oyster leaves, the freshness of green apples, the soft aniseed of fennel, along with blood orange and lime. At the heart of the distillation process is a daring ingredient, whey, which brings a buttery smoothness to the palate, perfectly complimenting the soft citrus and warming spices.”

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