James May is a familiar face for those of us raised on OG Top Gear back in the day. Since his tenure on the show ended in 2015, he’s swapped race tracks for cooking mishaps and cars for cuisine as he’s hosted cooking shows, travel shows, and more recently, turned to gin making.
Back in 2021, May like “any reasonably conceited TV presenter or Hollywood actor… had a go at making a gin”. He harvested a long-time interest in the spirit and wanted to combine his cheffing passions with distilling. Think alchemy but with British root veg instead.
His sweet, spicy and unorthodox parsnip gin - James Gin Asian Parsnip to be precise - has officially launched in Waitrose. Aided by Master Distiller Hugh Anderson (aka the Willy Wonka of Gin Making), the pair have made May’s whacky flavours and ideas into delicious gin.
True, an Asian Parsnip does not actually exist, but this gin is a combination of the homely flavours of English vegetables with Indian punch and spice. The tasting notes promise Parsnip, Ginger, Caraway Seed, Cubeb Pepper, Fenugreek, Cardamom, Grains of Paradise, Liquorice Root, Sweet Orange, Juniper, Angelica Root, and Coriander Seed. Does this mean it counts as all of your five a day? Perhaps.
May has three other gins currently available through his website; London Drizzle which is a twist on the classic London Dry. Why the change in name? Well, as May sagely put it: “Gin is traditionally called London Dry - but I live there and usually it isn’t. So I wanted to make a gin that would invoke that unique petrichor smell that comes from light rain hitting the pavement on a warm day. I’ve never met anybody who doesn’t like that smell.”
The second is California Dreamgin', made with “two staples of the hippie movement” - mushrooms and patchouli - in tribute to the state of California where his gin has been very popular. It only felt right to honour it with some ingredients which were synonymous with the hippie movement whose origins lie in Californian history. The key botanicals are mushroom, oregano, and patchouli, but somehow has a light, fruity, and peppery flavour with a hint of, erm, apricot?
The final gin? Well, it’s a Navy Strength version of the Asian Parsnip. The inspiration came from an American customer who said that if May made a Navy Strength version of Asian Parsnip 'the world of gin would never be the same’. So they did. And for anyone wondering what Navy Strength means, it just means that the gin has an ABV of 57% (or more...) as opposed to the more traditional 43% mark for gin.
May co-owns a pub in Wiltshire where the gin was first soft launched. Each gin is first created ‘by men in parkas in cold sheds’ in Wiltshire, before being distilled and produced at Thames Distillers in London once greenlit.
About the gin and its inaugural supermarket launch, May said: “I came up with the idea of blending the flavour of parsnip (because it reminds me of England and its dampness) with Asian spices (because they add excitement). And so we created the unimaginatively named Asian Parsnip - celebrating both the homely flavour of that most English of root vegetables and the gastric stimulus of spices from India.
It may sound weird at first, but then they said that about the internal combustion engine. And if you don’t believe me, Waitrose like it enough to sell it - and they don’t sell any old rubbish. Not at their prices, anyway.”
You can get your hands on a bottle via Waitrose online and instore for £36 for a 70cl bottle.
Main image credit: James Gin
Latest
Related Reviews and Shortlists
