Our Shepherd’s Run Gin is an ode to a 150-year history at Mount Rothwell Estate of shearing, fleecing and flocking on one of Victoria’s largest sheep stations.
Mount Rothwell Estate was built in 1873 for Robert Chirnside, cousin to Thomas Chirnside who lived at Werribee Mansion and was the patriarch of the Chirnside colonial empire. While Thomas Chirnside was the head of the operation, it was Robert who actually had the boots on the ground running the operations at the sheep station.
Mount Rothwell Estate was then a working sheep station right up until the year 2000 by descendant Scott Chirnside. The old shearing shed went unused then for 20 years, until Anne and Michael Smith bought the property in 2019 and decided to convert the century-old shearing shed into Rothwell Distillery.
I was on holiday with my now-fiancé Alex in Otago, Aotearoa (New Zealand), in the quiet, picturesque town on the banks of Lake Wanaka at the beginning of 2023, just a few weeks before I took over the distilling at Rothwell Distillery. We went to Cork Bar and on their menu was a cocktail called ‘Everything But the Lamb’, a gin cocktail mixed with rosemary, thyme and lemon. And the idea struck me there, what if I DISTILLED a gin based on all the ingredients for roast lamb?
So, ingredients for roast lamb. Classically there’s rosemary, thyme, mint and lemon. Easy, we already grow all those at Rothwell. Juniper is commonly cooked with lamb too back in the UK, perfect for a gin then. I tried distilling the first batch like this and it was missing something, it leant a little too hard on the herbal side and tasted a bit medicinal. A few more trials adjusting botanical levels and while it was improving, it still felt like it was missing something to tie in its savoury profile.
Going back to recipes for roast lamb, of course I’d glanced over salt and pepper first, but now I thought about it more. Pepper was easy, but you can’t distill a mineral like salt. What to do… but of course, salt bush! This native ingredient has been used by First Nations people in this country for millenia before in cooking, and it happens to grow all around us!
Adding saltbush and peppercorn finally fulfilled the flavour profile for the Shepherd’s Run Gin. It has a mediterranean herbal profile, with a hint of salinity and spice to really hit that mouth-filling, meatiness of roast lamb. All backed up by a classical gin profile of juniper, coriander and angelica root, it neatly fits into a contemporary style of savoury dry gins. Perfect for mixing with tonic with some thyme and lemon to garnish, and an excellent choice in a variety of martini styles. The Chirnside legacy lives on in our Shepherd’s Run Gin!
