The King Charles Cocktail
This new cocktail features some of the things that King Charles is said to like including gin and scotch whiskey, a very mature, very sophisticated spirit.
Highclere Castle Gin Has Its Roots Firmly Planted in Essex, Connecticut
Where England Meets New England
(left)Adam, smoking a Highclere Castle Cigar, which he also co-founded; (right)the Patio Punch cocktail. PHOTOS COURTESY OF HIGHCLERE CASTLE GIN
(left)The King Charles Cocktail with fresh rosemary; (right)a classic view of Highclere Castle
This is an historic tale as well as a new tale. While Highclere Castle Gin was launched in 2019 this story is about the founder, Adam von Gootkin, who is a true gentleman of Connecticut. His family has been here for centuries, as distillers, hoteliers, and even bootleggers.
Distilling would seem to be in Adam’s blood. He grew up mostly in the Middletown and Rocky Hill areas. His mother’s family, Chaffee, is a very old Connecticut family that has been here and in Rhode Island since the 1700’s. They lived in the Middletown area and in the 1800’s opened Chaffee & Sons Distillery. Unfortunately, they ultimately lost the distillery to the government when his ancestors sought to ship a few hundred barrels of whiskey to Canada without paying the taxes on it.
While the family was out of the distilling business for a while their entrepreneurialism continued. Adam’s grandfather, greatgrandfather, and great-great-grandfather had a prominent hotel in Middletown, on the Connecticut River, called Chaffee's Hotel. “When prohibition hit, they turned the basement of the hotel into a speakeasy which became quite renowned around the area at the time, infamous in a way. They also had two steam ship paddle boats that would do daily runs to Manhattan,” muses Adam. The hotel was sold to the Italian Society in the 1950’s and lives on as the Italian Society of Middletown on Court Street.
This rich family history was not lost on Adam. After a short stint in college, he realized his path forward was as an entrepreneur as well. He started with some small businesses and then, in his midtwenties, unsurprisingly, discovered his real passion was producing spirits. Adam notes, “I've always loved wine and food and spirits and all that that represents. I realized that there were not many young distillers in the country. In fact, in 2008, there wasn't even a distillery in Connecticut.” He took what he had learned about the science and craft of distillation and opened a distillery called Onyx Moonshine, which was his first foray in the liquor industry. “We grew it over the course of a few years into quite a force. It was available in a lot of the fine restaurants and most liquor stores in Connecticut. It was a real point of pride for me because it was kind of paying homage to my family and ancestry.”
Then, around 2016, Adam realized he wanted a bigger stage. He says, “I wanted to take what I had learned in the business and apply it to a global brand.” Adam researched the liquor industry and realized that a lot of the brands weren’t of high quality nor really authentic. He started to look for a product that had real potential but says, “Also a product I could create that that had some global level of appeal where I could really explore a challenge, from a brand perspective as well as to what type of spirit to create.”
Adam’s marketing sense told him that gin was underrepresented. He felt it could be a lot more sophisticated and complex than vodka, which is the basis of gin, yet gin is only 5% of the market whereas vodka is 45%. “Vodka's defined as flavorless, odorless, alcohol molecules by the U.S. government, which sounds no fun. And gin is vodka flavored with beautiful botanicals. It's an art form unto itself with a fantastic history in England and in Europe. at kind of converged with my being an Anglophile and of British ancestry. I happen to love England and London is my favorite city. I've been going there for 20 years, and I visited often when my wife studied there at university. I kind of had my eyes set on doing a project in the UK. And then, at the perfect moment, that's when I was introduced to the TV series Downton Abbey.” Kismet indeed.
Adam quickly discovered the setting for the show was a real-life place called Highclere Castle in Hampshire, England. He wasted no time and sent a very random email off to the castle the very next day. “It was pretty amazing to receive a call the next day from the Lord of Carnarvon, Godson to her late Majesty the Queen, to say, ‘Hey, we love your idea. Let's get together and talk. Why don't you come up to the castle?’” (That must have been some email!) When he arrived, Adam fell completely in love. “I fell in love with the castle, and of course, with Lord and Lady Carnarvon. I just thought that they were humble, kind, hardworking people that represented a very special British tradition.”
“It’s as much a Connecticut brand as it is a British one. A lot of history, very real, and very authentic.” —Adam von Gootkin
(top left)Adam and Lord Carnarvon; (top right)A finishing touch on the The King Charles Cocktail (photo: Lisa Nichols); (bottom)the old "Jenny" gin still
Highclere Castle is a quintessential British country house with centuries of history entertaining royalty, celebrities, statesmen, and scientists. There are 300 rooms in the castle, while the property covers 5,000 acres and is actually a huge farming operation. Adam notes that, “Lord Carnarvon is basically a farmer. If you watch Downton Abbey, there's this dynamic where during the day there's pigs to take care of and 2000 head of sheep to shave. Then at night everybody's in tuxedo and it's dinnertime. You never know who's going to be showing up from all corners of the world.”
Lord Carnarvon himself tells us, “My connection with Adam was luck and serendipity in that he sent a somewhat random email to me at Highclere around seven years ago, but this has turned out to be a great meeting of minds and I share his imagination and drive to get a new enterprise underway.
“Adam understands the spirits business well but more than that he knows that quality, authenticity, and a quest for near perfection make all the difference. Fiona and I have made an enduring friendship with Adam and his wife Regina and now Highclere Castle Gin reflects the long history of hospitality and gracious entertainment at Highclere Castle since the time of my Great, Great Grandfather, the 4th Earl at the height of Victorian England and the weekend House Party.
“This year we celebrate the centenary of the 5th Earl’s discovery of Tutankhamen’s Tomb in 1922 and its opening in 1923 so we must raise a glass of Highclere Gin & Tonic to the 5th Earl who died in the hour of his triumph in April 1923.”
Creating a new gin is not an easy endeavor. Working closely with Lord and Lady Carnarvon, as well as the Master Distiller for Highclere, Adam set to the task. In his search for authenticity Adam realized an enormous opportunity to not only use botanicals from the estate but also to celebrate the centuries of hospitality and entertainment within the castle walls. The creation process took over a year and roughly 25 recipe iterations.
“They've been drinking gin there for at least a hundred years,’ Adam says. “My vision was to liquify the spirit of Highclere, which I know sounds a bit kitschy and clever, but it really is true. I wanted to take the terroir of the earth around the castle and the spirit of entertainment and hospitality within the castle and liquefy it all into an award-winning spirit. Let's make a gin that has a viscous mouth feel like a whiskey, lush and luxurious on pallet.”
How to go about that? Some ingredients were obvious, one was not. “The first thing that struck me the very first time I went to the castle, is that right behind the castle is a Victorian era Orangery,” says Adam. Of course, gin has to include juniper, but Adam feels too many of them are too juniper forward. With the Orangery at the castle, he knew it would be a citrus forward gin. “It’s probably the most modern thing about the brand. We’re a traditional London dry gin but citrus forward using the oranges, lime flowers and lemon.”
Lavender was another inspiration. Before the property was transferred to Lord Carnarvon’s ancestors, it was owned and lived in by the Bishops of Winchester. And in the ninth century, the Bishop of Winchester built the walled monk’s garden lined in lavender beds, which they used for the scent and the beauty. “Those lavender beds are still there today, over a thousand years later, and there’s tons of it. I thought it'd be really ancient of us to use the lavender in our gin. My vision was not to have lavender be a main flavor profile, but rather to kind of bury it within the aroma of the gin. Like when you’re walking through someone's grand foyer and you pass a vase of lavender, you just get a subtle waft of it.
“The last thing that we did, which is really crazy, is we used oats. It was actually Lord Carnarvon’s idea because there are a lot of oats grown at Highclere for their thoroughbred horses. Lord Carnarvon’s father and grandfather were both racing managers to the Queen, so horseracing and breeding have always been a big part of Highclere life, while their oats are actually quite prized and well-respected the world over.
“We tried the oats in the botanical blend as an experiment and the result was that they add this super creamy finish, this viscosity of almost like a whiskey or a cognac.
That means that when you mix it into cocktails, it kind of absorbs the ingredients around it really nicely to become this well mellowed, well meshed, rich, luxurious gin, not a biting juniper, cheap vodka kind of gin. And we're the first gin in the world to do this.”
Ultimately the team settled on ten botanicals: lime flower, citrus, juniper, coriander, angelica, cassia root, licorice, peppercorns, cardamom, lavender, plus oats which give it a very smooth after taste. An eclectic mix to be sure.
Naturally, the distillery needed to be special as well. Adam chose Langley Distillers located in Birmingham, England. According to Adam, Langley is the oldest gin distillery in all of England. Importantly, the distillery is located over an ancient underground water source, a key ingredient to spirits. He says, “We use a still called Jenny that dates back to the 1850’s I believe. It’s the oldest gin still in the UK.”
Lord and Lady Carnarvon with their dogs at Highclere Castle
The process starts with a base spirit made from English grown wheat. Then they add the unique recipe of botanicals to the still in a what looks like a huge tea bag and heat it three times to isolate the desired flavors and purify it. The result is a high proof version of Highclere Castle Gin. In a final step, the spring water from underneath the distillery is used to blend the spirit to proof.
Since the launch in mid 2019, the brand’s growth has been incredible despite launching just before the pandemic. “We're available now in seven countries, we're available in about 27 US states in many of the finest hotels and private clubs and restaurants. We’re also the featured gin on Viking Cruise Lines. We're available for e-commerce in about 40 states and 27 EU countries. We just did about 20,000 cases last year, and I expect we'll do about 30,000 cases this year,” says Adam. Of note, Highclere Castle Gin has now won over 70 international spirit awards with many more expected. In 2022, the company reached a valuation of $45M in just under three years.
Interestingly, in the years after Highclere Castle Gin was launched, other royals, including the Queen herself, have followed suit with their own distilleries. The new gins include Buckingham Palace Dry Gin, Sandringham Gin, and Highgrove Organic Garden Botanical Gin.
Spring of 2023 sees the introduction of the King Charles cocktail. “With this being a coronation year and us being such a very British brand, it just makes sense to create a special cocktail. I think King Charles is going to be a really great king in terms of being a global leader, setting a good example, and personifying all the things that Kings should stand for,” Adam says.
The new cocktail features some of the things that King Charles is said to like including gin and scotch whiskey, a very mature, very sophisticated spirit. Says Adam, “I thought if we could somehow make those flavors really work well, we'd have something pretty special. My team here in Essex, who needed no excuse, spent some time in R&D, we'll call it, and they mustered up this recipe that's just absolutely gorgeous! It's sweet and savory and a bit smoky, and yet very Highclere in its citrus-ness. It comes out rather gold, which is fitting, and it's truly a celebratory cocktail in his honor. I believe it’s a masterpiece, and hopefully someday we'll be able to have the King try it.”
Fortunately for all of us in Connecticut, we’ll be able to try the King Charles Cocktail at several establishments including Grano Arso in Chester, Carlson’s Landing in Essex (where the gin is the house gin), and hopefully at The Shipwright’s Daughter in Mystic, among others.
At the end of the day,” Adam notes, “My family's been here for a couple hundred years, and I'm proud to be from here. I have offices at Highclere Castle, but I’m also proud our headquarters are right here in Essex, Connecticut. It’s as much a Connecticut brand as it is a British one. There is a lot of history, and it's all very real and authentic. This is about telling the story of Highclere Castle and celebrating it and all that it stands for today when we need higher standards. Because it's a world where people are wearing pajamas out in public, we need to be more than ever committed to actual authenticity.”
It seems clear that Adam has succeeded wildly in creating an authentic experience. A delicious gin that is distinctly English but with a sense of American taste as well.
- The Highclere Castle Gin HQ is located at 6 Main Street, in Essex. www.highclerecastlegin.com IG @highclerecastlegin
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