Minke Gin

Product
Clonakilty Distillery’s award winning Minke Irish Gin is inspired by the Minke Whale, the majestic creatures that swim wild off Cork’s Atlantic coastline.

The local coastline is also home to Rock Samphire, the unique botanical that gives Minke Irish Gin its distinct flavour profile.

A refreshing, citrus forward gin, it’s best enjoyed over ice, with your favourite tonic and a sprig of mint.

Clonakilty Distillery also offers in the lead into the Christmas its small batch Minke Irish Sloe Gin, which mixes Minke Irish Gin as its base, with sloes berries and sugar.

It can be served neat, as a Hot Toddy or as a Sloe Gin Fruit Cup, which combines Minke Sloe Gin, with plenty of ice, a splash of lemonade, a sprig of mint, a slice of lemon and strawberries.

People
Clonakilty Distillery was founded in 2016 by the Scully Family, who have farmed the windswept coastal area of Galley Head for nine successive generations and over 320 years.

With the best resources that nature has to offer, prime land, pristine water and salt sea air, they had the perfect ingredients for an Irish maritime distillery.

Process
For Minke Irish Gin, Clonakilty Distillery goes full circle, grass to glass, harvesting nature at its best, with a unique copper gin still that operates alongside their three Irish whiskey copper pot stills.

At Clonakilty they take care to distil all their botanicals in season, ensuring maximum freshness.

In addition to Rock Samphire, harvested locally, the base spirit used is derived from milk, produced on the Scully family farm making Minke a whey based Irish gin with a smooth velvety texture.

For Minke’s Sloe Gin, the sloe berries are sweetened with a pinch of sugar and left to age for a period of 9 months, the gin absorbs the rich ruby colour and sweet fruity flavours of the berries.

Provenance
The south west of Ireland, on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, is an area renowned for its unspoilt natural beauty. Located at the waterfront in the heart of Clonakilty town, the distillery opened in 2019.

To create Minke Irish Gin, Clonakilty Distillery sustainably harvest native Rock Samphire on the cliffs along the shoreline in Cork, by hand and when it’s in season.

Clonakilty’s Minke Sloe Gin is created with sloes berries, the wild plum like berry that grows in Irish hedgerows.

Process
For Minke Irish Gin, Clonakilty Distillery goes full circle, grass to glass, harvesting nature at its best, with a unique copper gin still that operates alongside their three Irish whiskey copper pot stills.

At Clonakilty they take care to distil all their botanicals in season, ensuring maximum freshness.

In addition to Rock Samphire, harvested locally, the base spirit used is derived from milk, produced on the Scully family farm making Minke a whey based Irish gin with a smooth velvety texture.

For Minke’s Sloe Gin, the sloe berries are sweetened with a pinch of sugar and left to age for a period of 9 months, the gin absorbs the rich ruby colour and sweet fruity flavours of the berries.