The Great Estate 2023: Foraging Walks and Wild Gin Workshops!

Myself and my assistant Steph, all ready to welcome our thirsty guests!

This last weekend I had the pleasure of running several short foraging walks and two Wild Gin workshops at the Great Estate festival at Scorrier House. What a heavenly location this was! I always enjoy the Wild Gin workshops as I like to describe them as George’s Marvellous Medicine for grown-ups!  ​

Our guests hard at work creating their own marvellous medicine!

​The workshops begin with an introduction to how gin is made. Gin is essentially a clear base spirit which is infused with juniper berries. I have learnt a hack, which is to buy very cheap vodka, and then pass it through a water filter 3 times to purify the vodka. The vodka we then infuse with Juniper berries and whatever wild ingredients we fancy to create our gin! The wild gin workshops are all about crafting a gin which will suit your own taste buds, so I pre-forage ingredients for the guests to play with. This Saturday we had the following selection: ​

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​Achillia millefolium Common Yarrow 
Crithmum maritimum Rock Samphire 
Daucus carota Wild Carrot seeds  
Filipendula ulmaria Meadowsweet 
Foeniculum vulgare Wild Fennel 
Geum urbanum Wood Avens/ Herb Bennet 
Heracleum sphondylium Common Hogweed seeds  
Matricaria discoidea Pineapple Weed 

​​Prunus spinosa Unripe Sloe berries 
Rosa rubiginosa Rose petals 
​Rumex acetosa Common Sorrel  
Salicornia europa Marsh Samphire 
Sambucus nigra Elderflower 
Smurnium olastrum Alexanders seeds  
Sueada maritima Annual Sea Blight 
Triglochin maritima Sea Arrowgrass  

Unfortunately foraging Juniper berries to infuse into our vodka is almost impossible as it is almost completely absent in Cornwall. So this ingredient along with our lemons is foraged from our local shop. ​

Everyone looking gloriously festival ready!

Rose petal infused wild gin! What an amazing colour!

​gentleman who used Crithmum maritmum (rock samphire), unripe Prunus spinosa (sloe) berries, Triglochin maritima (sea arrowgrass) and Heracleum sphondylium (common hogweed) seeds to create a gin that was aromatic, tart and astringent. As wildly different as these combinations are, both guests were very pleased with their creations and were inspired to experiment at home to make their own personalised gin. If any of my guests would like to keep me up to date with their own marvellous medicine experiments I would love to see and hear all about it!  ​

I love using wild ingredients to flavour the gin, and enjoy helping my guests craft their individual gin (especially as pretty much everyone asks me to take a sip to help with the flavouring!). A surprise on the day was some dark red roses that we foraged from on site, after being bashed into the gin these produced a lovely pink colour that deepened when tonic water was added. And it tasted pretty good too! The sun was shining maybe a little too brightly but I enjoyed chatting with my guests and discussing each of the wild ingredients. Some wonderful concoctions were made! A few notable ones were the combination of the lovely deep rose petals with Dacus carota (wild carrot seeds), Salicornia europa (marsh samphire) and Matricaria discoidea (pineapple weed) which created a lovely sweet pink gin, and another 

Happy people enjoying their wild crafted G&T!

More of our fabulous guests enjoying their creations!

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​If anyone was disappointed to miss these workshops I am running another Wild Gin Workshop at the Food Jam at Enys Gardens Saturday 8th July at 4pm. Link to book: 
 
https://www.cornishwildfood.co.uk/foodjam.html