With the weather getting chillier by the day, we thought it was only right to throw it back to a comforting Discovery Gin that we love at this time of year - that is full of joyous nostalgia in each sip! If you love the flavour of apple crumble, you’re in for a treat. This gin is the ultimate autumnal tipple and we’re obsessed with it here at Craft Gin Club!

And we’re not the only ones waxing lyrical about it, the Three Wrens Apple Crumble Gin recently took home a three-star award from the Great Taste Awards, too!

With a punchy ABV and a flavour profile that blends sophistication with fun, Three Wrens Apple Crumble Gin is a flavoured gin for serious gin fans – and here’s why you should try it…

Every month, separately from the Gin of the Month that features in our boxes, we bring our gin-loving community across the UK a different, specially selected Discovery Gin, available on our Members’ Store. 

These craft gins are all delicious, unique and adventurous spirits that we want to share with club members. All of our Discovery Gins are chosen with a view to helping broaden Clubbers’ gin horizons even further – whether through exploring unusual ingredients and flavours or discovering exciting new distillers who are just breaking into the gin world.

This stunning gin was our divine Discovery Gin in March 2020, and one sip of Three Wrens Apple Crumble Gin and we’re sure you’ll be hooked!

Think all flavoured gins are sugar-saturated spirits in dubious hues of pink and blue? Let us introduce you to Three Wrens Apple Crumble Edition Gin, a meticulously-crafted tipple that will change how you see flavoured gins forever.

Unlike many ‘flavoured’ gins, this singular spirit doesn’t take its flavour from artificial ingredients added after distillation. Instead, the Three Wrens team worked for six months to identify the perfect botanical blend to give them the taste of apple crumble in a hand-crafted gin.

March 2020’s Craft Gin Club Discovery Gin:

Three Wrens Apple Crumble Gin

40% ABV

Botanicals:

In addition to a strong juniper presence, this unique gin gets its flavour from:

Cheshire Apples: Harvested from nearby orchards.

Oats: Toasted to perfection, then macerated (left to soak) in the spirit overnight.

Cinnamon and Demerara Sugar: For apple crumble’s signature sweetness and spice.

Tasting Notes:

Complex toasted scents of oats and apple dominate the nose. On the palate, a hit of juniper and toasted oats elevate the flavours with a luxurious mouthfeel. On the mid-palate fresh apple dominates, with warm cinnamon lingering on the finish.

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Meet the Maker

Three Wrens founder & distiller, Nick Wadeson

For Three Wrens founder and distiller Nick Wadeson, this gin is a labour of love – and the realisation of a life-long dream! Nick had always had ambitions to be his own boss and spend his days making gin, but it was only after he left the city that a chance encounter with his woodland distillery made the plan feel real.

He says, “I just happened across the perfect premises, in gorgeous woodland just five minutes from home. I decided to snap it up, quit my job and go all-in to make the dream a reality!”

Nick learned the ins and outs of distilling, perfecting his signature recipe. With enough skill and experience under his belt, he felt ready to try something special: an apple crumble-flavoured spirit a world apart from other ‘flavoured’ gins flooding the supermarket shelves.

He says, “I originally started experimenting by distilling the flavours, apples and oats, separately and realised that we could use them paired with a classic juniper base to create something unique.”

For many gin lovers, trying a gin with a fun flavour means making a serious compromise. Flavoured gins are often packed with sugar or artificial flavourings, which are added after the fact; alternatively, they’re categorised as ‘gin liqueurs’ and have very low ABVs. In short, they aren’t considered ‘serious’ gins. Nick wanted to change that with his first foray into fun flavours, distilling the core flavours of the classic British crumble into a serious, hand-crafted gin.

He says, “We always wanted this to be a credible gin first and foremost. It has a rich juniper base and a decent ABV of 40%, which is super important to us.”

But achieving such a spirit was easier said than done; in all, it took Nick six months and more than 100 trial runs to create his incredible Apple Crumble Edition Gin. When Nick first began experimenting, he was using whole apples. The result was a gin that tasted too much like stewed apple. He tried different methods, eventually settling on dehydrated apple peel.

But it was the oats, toasted to perfection and then macerated in the spirit, that give this gin its incredible crumbly flavour. “This was a bit of a ‘Eureka’ moment for us,” says Nick, “and it’s how we get the ‘crumble’ effect.”

The result simply must be tasted to be believed. The scent and flavour of apple crumble unfurl across a sophisticated canvas of juniper and orange peel, creating what Nick describes as, “a truly one-of-a-kind spirit and has quite a grown-up taste, with several layers of rich flavour.”

 “I love it over ice on a cold night,” Nick says. “But on warm spring days, sipping it over ice with elderflower tonic and a slice of apple hits the spot.”

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How should I drink Three Wrens Apple Crumble Edition?

 Apple Crumble G&T

50ml Three Wrens Apple Crumble Edition Gin
200ml premium (or elderflower, for a twist!) tonic
Apple slice, to garnish

Fill a glass with ice. Add your gin, then your tonic, then garnish with a slice of apple to serve.

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Toasted Apple Sour

50ml Three Wrens Apple Crumble Edition Gin
25ml lemon juice
1 egg white
15ml cinnamon sugar syrup*

*To make your cinnamon syrup, combine 200ml water and 200g sugar with two cinnamon sticks, bring to a simmer until combined, strain and cool before use. Leftover syrup can be stored in the fridge.

Add all of your ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake once without ice for 20 seconds. This is called a dry shake, and will make the egg white foamy. Add ice and shake again until the shaker is very cold to the touch. Strain your cocktail into a Martini glass or cocktail coupe and serve.