Gin Update

I have been rather remiss in documenting my recent forays into the world of gins and the Christmas lull seems to be a good time to rectify matters.

Dingle Original Gin

From the south west of Ireland, County Kerry to be precise, this award winning gin from Dingle can be best described as their take on a London Dry Gin, using six traditional botanicals and seven that are locally grown and harvested. So, along with juniper and stalwarts such as coriander and angelica we find rowan berry, fuchsia, bog myrtle, heather, chervil, and hawthorn. The array of local botanicals are not dissimilar to those that would be found in some Scottish gins.

Using their own hand beaten copper still called Aisling, Gaelic for dream, the chaps at Dingle mascerate some of the botanicals for 245 hours before distillation and suspend the others in a gin basket to catch the spirit vapour. Once completed, the distillate is then cut with pure water drawn from their 240-foot deep well which is sited below the distillery to produce the final spirit which has an ABV of 42.5%. Each bottle bears a number and a batch number – mine is 097 from batch 6.

The result is an impressively light clear spirit with the pine of the juniper and the floral notes of the angelica coming through strongly, leavened by a minty undertone and more than a little hint of herbs before finishing off with peppery notes. Complex, light, perhaps with a little too much mint for my taste, it is certainly a distinctive take on a London Dry.

The bottle is made of clear glass and is angular, tapering up to a very broad, rounded shoulder, a medium sized neck and a wooden cap and synthetic stopper. The bottle is packed with information which is a tad difficult to read with these rheumy eyes as it is in small black type against a clear background. Impressive stuff.

Rockpool Gin

A trip to Drinkfinder’s store in Constantine would not be complete without a Cornish gin landing in my basket. Rockpool Gin is produced by Hans and Dagmar at their Roseland Distillery, named after the adjacent stretch of south Cornish coastline. It is another attempt to paint a picture with a gin, the distillers aiming to recreate the charm of the coastline.

The foundation is underpinned by the holy trinity of gin distillation, juniper berries, coriander seeds, and angelica root while the addition of sea buckthorn berries gives both a littoral and fruity twist to a spirit that is clear, intensely satisfying and packs a punch with an ABV of 45%. It goes to prove that less is often more, but whether I found myself transported to sitting on a rock with my toes in a pool is a more open question. Nevertheless, it rates as one of my favourite Cornish spirits.

The bottle too is eye catching with its marine blue glass and undulating shaped bottom, capturing the sensation of the movement of the waves while the elliptical body of the bottle is illustrated with waving sea plants. The broad shoulder repeats the undulating glass work, while the neck leads up to a wooden top and a cork stopper. It certainly stands out!

Until the next time, cheers!

Christmas Cracker Jokes 2025 – Part Three

Season’s greeting to all!

Some more Christmas cracker jokes to keep you amused and alienate your friends and family!

• Why was the Advent Calendar afraid? Its days were numbered
• What’s the best thing to put into a Christmas Cake? Your teeth
• Why is everyone so thirsty at the north pole? No well
• What do you call a bunch of chess players bragging about their games in a hotel lobby? Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer
• What is the duck’s favourite Christmas carol? In The Beak Midwinter
• Why has Santa been banned from sooty chimneys? Carbon footprints
• What’s the difference between Santa Clause and a knight? One slays a dragon, the other drags a sleigh
• What do you call an old snowman? A puddle  

Christmas Cracker Jokes 2025 – Part Two

Some more Christmas cracker jokes to keep you amused and alienate your friends and family!

• What did the wise men say after they offered up their gifts of gold and frankincense? Wait, there’s myrrh
• What does Santa suffer from if he gets stuck in a chimney? Claus-trophobia
• How do you help someone who has lost their Christmas spirit? Nurse them back to ‘elf
• Why are elves such great motivational speakers? They have plenty of elf-confidence
• What’s the difference between the Christmas alphabet and the ordinary alphabet? The Christmas alphabet has No L
• What did the English teacher call Santa’s helpers? Subordinate Clauses
• How can you tell when Santa’s around? You can feel his presents
• How do Christmas trees get ready for a night out? They spruce up

So there is not too much of a good thing, more next time!

Christmas Cracker Jokes 2025 – Part One

Some Christmas cracker jokes to keep you amused and alienate your friends and family!

• What’s a dog’s favourite carol? Bark, the herald angels sing.
• Why did Rudolph log on to Amazon when his tail fell off? Because they’re the biggest online re-tailers.
• Where does Father Christmas go for an action-packed weekend of activities?
   Santa Parcs
• How do the elves clean Santa’s sleigh? They use Santa-tizer.
• How does Santa keep track of all the fireplaces he’s visited? He keeps a log book
• What was the bauble’s secret addiction? It was hooked on trees
• How do snowmen travel around? By icicle
• What do you call a reindeer ghost? Cari-boo

So there is not too much of a good thing, more tomorrow!

The Christmas Egg

A review of The Christmas Egg by Mary Kelly – 251107

The Christmas Egg is the third and final book in Kelly’s Inspector Brett Nightingale series, originally published in 1958 and reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, who have also re-published her later The Spoilt Kill. It certainly starts off with a bang, with Inspector Nightingale and Sergeant Beddoes discovering  the body of an exiled Russian princess, Olga Karukhin, in a gloomy Islington flat within the first few paragraphs. Her trunk, firmly kept under her bed, which contained a hoard of valuable jewels that she had been able to save from the Karukhin Palace, had been stripped bare of its contents. There happens to be an organized gang of thieves operating in the area whom the police have had in their sights.

Any hopes that the dramatic opening is the prelude to a fast moving novel are soon dashed, however. The book becomes an odd mix of police procedure as Nightingale assisted by Beddoes get down to making sense of what happened in the flat – the old woman had been poisoned with an overdose of sleeping tablets – and then a thriller as the second half of the book concentrates on an extensive police operation set in the marshes of Kent. At least that is dramatic with Nightingale captured and then coming close to death as a helicopter hits the car in which he is being kept. The book is redeemed in part by a nice couple of twists at the end.

The problem for me is that from the perspective of a murder mystery there is little doubt as to the identity of who caused the old woman’s death, whether deliberately or inadvertently, and there is precious little in the way of detection, Nightingale’s breakthrough coming by way of that hoary old crime writer’s get out, a tip off from a reliable source. Nightingale, whom we follow throughout most of the story, is an engaging companion, a flawed character who lets his personal feelings cloud his judgment and potentially compromise his integrity and impartiality in the case. He also suffers in the line of duty, getting coshed over the head, a fate that his brother in arms, Beddoes, also suffers, but he also finds time to teach a potential suspect the meaning of a Latin quotation, a nice human if somewhat academic touch.

While the conventional aspects of a murder mystery seem to be rather half-heartedly adhered to, Kelly seems much more interested in exploring the characters that she has created. Olga is a woman locked in the past, still traumatized by the events of the Russian revolution, her haul of jewels representing the last vestiges of the privileged life she once enjoyed, a stark contrast to the miserable and grim existence that she leads in the backwaters of Islington. Although she appears weak and feeble, a reclusive bed-ridden woman, she is more wily than she seems and is more than a match for common or garden thieves.

Perhaps more interesting is the portrayal of her grandson, Ivan aka Vanya, who lives under her shadow, and driven to drink. The temptation put in his way to transform his life is too much to resist initially but then he is filled with remorse, attempts to drown himself only to be saved by Beddoes and then later on during the police operation attempts to find his own path to redemption.

Nightingale misjudges, at least initially, two of the other significant characters, Majendie, the suave sophisticated jeweller who had his eyes on the prize piece in Olga’s collection, and his assistant, the lively Stephanie Cole who becomes besotted with him, wondering whether they are among the plotters or some of the good guys. The come to highlight the flaws in the detective’s character and confirm that he is human like the rest of us.

Set in an era when people were known by their surnames and their first names were rarely used, if even known, Nightingale discovers that Beddoes’ first name is Jonathan. His is David, and this cannot be other than a reference to the Old Testament duo who had a deep and loyal friendship, intense camaraderie and who stood together come what may, qualities that the pair amply illustrate as the tale develops.

Overall, less a Christmas Egg and more a Curate’s egg, if you accept the more modern meaning.