PRODUCT OVERVIEW:

Dumshanbo Gunpowder Irish gin is a citrus and herb driven Irish gin, fusing the curious musings of its founder with oriental botanicals and gunpowder green tea. While not incendiary, gunpowder tea does possess a bold flavor that hints of smoke. Alas, the name is derived from the small round pellets that each leaf has been rolled into, resembling grains of gunpowder.

PJ Rigney is the founder and spirits industry veteran with decades of experience and travel under his belt who sought to catch lightning in a bottle by fusing oriental botanicals with botanicals sourced from the quaint eponymous hamlet in Ireland where his parents met. His entrepreneurial drive focused on representing a sense of place and promoting both environmental sustainability and his local economy.

The story goes that the gin was named after the mystical and illusive Drumshanbo Jackalope, spawned during a lightning storm, manifesting a shadowy frenzy of tiny feet and antlers. Legend has it that if you want to catch a glimpse of this rare rabbit-deer fusion, you need only open your whiskey flask and the jackalope will appear. The jackalope must stay very busy in Ireland.

The ambitious list of botanicals used in the copper still distillation of Drumshanbo includes juniper berries, angelica root, orris root, caraway seed, coriander seed, meadowsweet, cardamom, and star anise. Following distillation, the spirit is vapor-infused with lemon, red grapefruit, fresh lime, and gunpowder tea.
Vapor infusion involves placing botanicals in baskets inside of the still and evaporating the base spirit so that it passes up through the botanicals and is infused indirectly.

This gin is chock full of all of the antioxidants and citrus you'll need to fend off scurvy and malaria this winter. The final product is a classic juniper forward London dry gin, exhibiting abundant citrus in the form of candied grapefruit and lemon zest, and a panoply of diverse aromatics and herbs rounded out in a honeyed and spiced bold finish.

Color: Clear
Nose: Lemon zest, sage, juniper, green tea, star anise
Palate: Grapefruit, juniper, green tea, anise, cardamom, coriander, candied grapefruit.
Finish: Smooth, with notes of meadowsweet (floral and sweet almond), and a pleasant heat

The Gin Enthusiast: Rated 94 Points
"A refreshingly different Irish gin, with a stunning bottle, amazing aroma, and tantalizing taste."

Drinkhacker: Rated 9/10

The Gin Guide Review:
"Gunpowder Irish Gin is well-balanced and smooth, while delivering substantial flavour. There is a multi-layered character with no individual botanical shouting above the juniper, with the flavours all being brought together by the unifying tea flavours. It's a traditional gin with a twist, and the combination of juniper, citrus, spice, star anise and tea make for a distinctive and exciting product."- Paul Jackson, 2017

The Irish distilling scene has seen dramatic growth in recent history. There have been more new Irish whiskeys on the market in the last five years than the last fifty before that. And now the gin category is growing faster than any other spirit in the country. Last year, Drumshanbo won the Best Gin "Oscar" at the Flaviar New York Spirits Awards, which awards only 5 of over 20,000 entrants.

Rigney's journeys through the world and his life have made him the perfect candidate to bring this product to fruition. Drumshanbo is about bringing your wanderlust home with you and encapsulating the exploits of an inquisitive gallivanter in a bottle of gin. This product is as unique and intriguing as the wily legend that Rigney still catches a glimpse of some days out in the field: the Drumshanbo Jackalope.