Reverend Hubert Winter Gin Liqueur - 50cl, 27% ABV | Premium Alcoholic Drink Made with Natural Real Fruit | A Gin Liqueur Handmade in the UK | Perfect with Prosecco | Ideal for Gifts & Parties

Product Information

We make this Mince Pie and Marmalade liqueur, which has got my signature on the front, which I still find super weird. I mean, I used to have a proper job and now I’m just loving everything I do. Susan: It’s amazing with how many ingredients you’re talking about that it really only took six months to get what you wanted. TASTING NOTES: Our gold award-winning Winter Gin Liqueur is distinctive, original, balanced, & smooth. Bursting with aromatic notes of dried fruit, winter spices from Sri Lanka and the freshest orange & lemon zest from the Amalfi coast. Reverend Hubert’s original spirit is a genuine recreation of a recipe that was first created over 100 years ago. Susan: All right. So, you got it in the Cotswolds. You have it in the bottle. What do you do next? Obviously, you laugh.

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Susan: Exactly. It was the Negroni that was heard around the world. Now I always leave my guests asking them one question, which is, if you could be drinking anything anywhere right now, where would that be? And what would it be? Moment of inspiration The recipe for Reverend Hubert winter gin liqueur comes straight from one of his old hip flasks that Tom Lester was handed down Then he had a brilliant idea. Why not put his passion for gin to good use by creating a high-quality gin-based drink to help bring together his diverse community, as well as others, to buy and enjoy which could in turn raise money?

I presumed everyone would know what a liqueur was, but. when I think about it, the flavor, the sweetness brings with it huge flavor which was interesting. So yes, there’s the raisins and there’s the freshness one thing and another, and when I started mixing it with things, I realized that it was really mixable to, not be an alternative to a martini, let’s say and so it just ended up like that really? Yeah. We moved into a new house and I had a cherry tree in the garden and It was so bountiful and beautiful and amazing. I mean, I’m living in London, right? This is a rare find and I started messing around with the cherries and I was making cherry brandy and cherry liqueur and cherry jello, whatever you want to call it. Susan: You just have to ask. People can always say no, but you just have to ask. Sometimes it works out with you and Fortnum Mason, how fabulous. So, they’ve got it in a glass case. It says Reverend Hubert Winter Gin Liqueur, come on and get it. How did it do?

Susan: Now a lot of people might not see it. But it’s very, very colorful. It’s like a stained-glass window with his face on it. So go on. Describe it for us.

Susan: Now how long did it take you to create this label? Cause it’s, it’s really beautiful and it’s pretty intricate. Tom: The label came about because I read articles about him. During one of the wars, the Belgian refugees came to England and he was at the time based near Nottingham. They shifted them away from London as, as they did. One of the things that he did, which just remained in my mind was to go round, no one had any money or anything, but he used to collect eggs.I managed to get every single person their bottles the last bottle I delivered by hand on Christmas Day morning. So, it went absolutely crazy. I can’t say I enjoyed the two weeks of darkness in the farm in the Cotswolds, because that was hard work at -5, but we got there in the end. The Reverend Hubert Bell Lester (1868 -1929) was a charming and caring man who also enjoyed a good party, and in 1904 produced a popular winter gin liqueur that he shared amongst army comrades and the congregation of his local church in Nottinghamshire. Susan: I’m so excited to have you here. It was so great to meet you last year. I’ve wanted to have you on the show for so long. And now of course, winter is here and since you make a winter liqueur, it was time. Where did this idea even come from? Some people might know him because he has won Wine Personality of the Year and he used to be that the wine or spirits guy on Tom Kerridge’s Food and Drink. Often been on television, podcast, blah, blah, blah. He came along and I said, “Have a taste. Do you think this is worth pursuing?” And his first question was, ‘Which raisins do you use?” Susan: No, no, no, no, no. It’s for now, but no one knows anything about it. How about Reverend Herbert? All that stuff.

Tom: Good question because I have no idea about spirits. I’ve never worked in booze. I’ve had various jobs in the past, some incredibly brilliant and amazing and some less so good. This came about because I love having dinner parties. I always like people at the end of a dinner party to stay for an extra couple of hours to make sure, since we’re all together, that we make the most out of hanging out. Tom: Okay. Sorry. Yeah. Right. So, Hubert is my great-grandfather. He was a chap who I didn’t know much about who a composer of music was. He was an amazing Reverend; he was a chess champion. He fought in the war, so lots of really interesting, good stuff, but having said all that, right. He also was married a couple of times and it was clear that he enjoyed a party. It’s a fun label and it’s a fun drink. The label is fun. It’s meant to be fun. It’s a seriously well-made drink, but it is for fun. It’s meant to be for fun. It’s meant to be for celebrating, just like the Rev would have his parties. And that’s the label and the Rev coming together. I am so proud of what we are doing. It feels like we have created a new category, but then I think there is plenty of room for a category between vermouth and gin. A mixable liqueur that you can use to replace a spirit, a gin in different recipes,” he explains. Hubert joined the Church locally and as his popularity grew, he became Reverend of Keighley, assembling a large, but also diverse and fragmented congregation of followers. The challenge of uniting this diverse community and raising money to support those in need of help seemed insurmountable.He had already gotten the bug for having a go at homemade liqueurs when he was inspired to have a go at making limoncello from fine vodka and Amalfi lemons after going to the region on Honeymoon. Lester says he first came across the Reverend’s winter gin liqueur when he was given an old “smashed up WW1 hipflask with a barely legible label” by his aunt for his eighteenth birthday that happened to contain his winter liqueur and “a recipe of sorts”. “Here began the lesson,” says Lester. Susan: So, it’s a liqueur why did you decide liqueur versus liquor? Making it sweet? Making it not sweet. I think things are more serious now. We’ve got some investment in the business. There’s only so long that you could make 5,000 bottles demand, which is great. It’s too big for me to keep it up on my own. I need people to help me and to do that. I now have a responsibility to other people, which I love. We’ve got fun people involved, we’ve got the Duke of Norfolk, Eddy, who has invested in spirits before and who knows what he’s doing. He who brings cleverness and knowledge and fun to the party. That’s the experience that we’re going for. And we’ve got a garden gin version Fortnum and Mason would like me to make something else for them. When we make things, I might seem weird, but I’m always surprised that it works with this liqueur with the lemons and the oranges and the spices and the sweetness , there’s always something that can match and blend with something else.