Warner's Honeybee Gin, 70cl

Product Information

There’s a lot of fakery in this world,” Tom muses, “and we don’t do that. The bottle looks good, the liquid tastes great and the message is real. It’s not just one element; it’s all combined.” With 28 botanicals – including dried grapefruit peel, chamomile flowers, lavender, cubeb pepper and even quince, plus one top-secret ingredient – Warner Edwards Honeybee Gin is a truly virtuosic effort of distilling. But, despite the complexity of its creation, it’s deceptively simple and silky smooth on the palate. As a farmer’s son, agricultural college seemed a natural enough next step after school. But little did Tom Warner know that the straightforward decision to attend agricultural college would take his life in a new and amazing direction. Within months of releasing their signature London Dry Gin, the Warner Edwards team was already raking in the awards. But for the Warner Edwards team, it was perfecting the unique flavours – like the effervescent Harrington Elderflower Gin in June's Gin of the Month box – that gave them the most joy.

Scientists at the International Flavour Research Centre at the University of Nottingham confirm that focusing on the flavours, through reciting the tongue twister, will give you an enhanced tasting experience. A total winner with Mediterranean tonic and a sprig of sage if you’ve got one nearby. What's the story? There weren’t many gins you could drink neat,” she explains. “There were hints of growth, but nobody expected it to be as massive as it is now.” But, the more they learned, the more distilling gin took centre stage. And after a bit of research, they became convinced that making gin – or “the world’s best-tasting perfume”, as Tom calls it – was the way forward. Tom says, “I wanted to make a gin with a big citrus hit, to have the nectar interacting with the citrussy notes. It’s the craziest gin, and it was hard to distil because of the sheer variety of botanicals.” To celebrate our Rhubarb Gin's famous flavour, we have enlisted the help of acclaimed lexicographer SUSIE DENT, to pen a 'Rhubarb Tongue Twister' that will give drinkers THE ULTIMATE taste experience through the preparation of the palate.Gin Fans, did you know you can personalise your very own bottle of Warner’s Gin! With up to 20 characters, you can customise a bottle with a message of your choice for your friends and loved ones (or even yourself!) As the Warner’s state, “the path less travelled is often hardest but offers the richest rewards - working with real fruit and botanicals is far more complex than using factory created flavourings, but it creates the best tasting spirit, and that’s why we believe ‘Real Taste Better’ ”

After graduation Tina toiled away in the City, while Tom worked all hours at a fresh produce importer. Strange as it sounds, now that Warner Edwards is synonymous with the craft gin movement, distilling spirits wasn’t the first idea Tom had for the business. In fact, it wasn’t even the second. But at that time, Tina says, gin was barely on the map. Warner’s Distillery is the world’s leading premium farm-born gin producer. Its spirits are lovingly crafted with nature using ingredients directly from the botanical gardens, hedgerows, and natural springs of its farm estate.It’s a really hard industry,” says Tom of his life before gin. “I was bringing pineapples to the UK from all sorts of exotic countries and you want to work hard, but for yourself, so that was the entrepreneurial moment – we said, ‘Let’s start a company!’.” But the more Tom followed this sad string of thought, the more it transformed into a spark of inspiration. Rather than bemoan the sad fate of honeybees, why not rally gin lovers across the UK to their cause? And why not use the amazing botanicals from his garden – itself a sanctuary for honeybees – to do it? He says, “We have an awesome butterfly plant in the garden, so there’s a huge number of bees and butterflies there. When you research it, bees are in so much trouble at the moment – humans need to get better at safeguarding our habitats and pollinators.” All distillers want to do all day every day is make new recipes,” Tom laughs. “We want to make cool liquids! We don’t have to worry about selling a certain number of cases like the big boys do. We can make a flavour without focusing on shareholders or overheads – it’s about exciting ourselves and our customers, and giving people the best drinking experiences possible.”

Tom says, “A great still really looks after you. Beyond that, it’s all about experimenting and building a relationship. These stills are killing themselves with each distillation – the copper degrades every time you run it. So they’re selfless bits of kit, and the heartbeat of our business.” Personalisation is available on the following 70cl Gins; Harrington Dry Gin, London Dry Gin, Lemon Balm Gin, Honeybee Gin, Elderflower Gin, Rhubarb Gin, Raspberry Gin, Sloe Gin, Spring Blossom, Strawberry & Rose Gin and Christmas Cake Gin It was also here where Tom met his wife Tina, herself a farmer’s daughter whose interests and skills had taken her instead to the world of high finance. The pair met when Tom was visiting one of his classmates. For Tina, it was a no-brainer. “My Mam had a beehive at home on the farm in Dublin,” she says. “Once they even swarmed up into the roof of the house! There was a connection there, and the idea just seemed to flow so well with the hedgerows on Falls Farm, and how everything we need to flavour all of our gins we owe to the work of bees.”But all of the effort – the holidays spent with a hammer in hand, and the long nights willing plants to grow – have more than paid off. Because now Tom and Tina can spend the beautiful English summer in a botanical garden abuzz with bumblebees, butterflies and the incredible aroma of herbs and flowers.

It nearly killed me,” he laughs now, on the phone from Falls Farm, the beautiful Northamptonshire farm where he grew up, and which he would go on to convert into one of the first and most successful craft gin distilleries in the United Kingdom. Avoiding its competitors industrial approach, the Warner’s process is painstakingly focused on creating the best-tasting liquid, combining traditional gin production and the best farm-grown ingredients for a contemporary twist on flavor. Just the second special edition in the Warner Edwards Botanical Garden range (it joins lemon balm-based Melissa Gin on the roster) will this Honeybee Gin be the last amazing flavour to come out of Curiosity? Certainly not – and with a gorgeous garden bursting with flavours and aromas to try, you can bet that the next Warner Edwards outing won’t play it safe, either.

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As Tom explains, “There are a lot of gins where people are trying to make statements, and they become a palate killer. Honeybee Gin is quite a big gin in terms of its citrus and floral notes, but we distilled it very slowly. That makes it fresh and drinkable – a zippy, light gin that’s a strong favourite for us over the summer.” Since launching in 2012, Tom & Tina have built an expert team, producing unique spirits, elegantly crafted from ingredients grown on the farm such as elderflower, angelica, verbena and lavender. We use real ingredients to make our 100% natural range of spirits, on our farm in the British countryside. To make our award-winning Rhubarb Gin, we press tonnes of real rhubarb, until we have enough juice to fill a third of every bottle.