This year, I treated hubby to the Craft Gin Club’s Advent calendar; having felt a little guilty after buying myself a beauty version, full of lovely mysterious lotions and potions promising to make me look ten years younger and smell divine … I wish, but a bit of self-pampering – why not, as it’s something I rarely do?

Meanwhile, HRH’s very heavy box arrived, full of 25, 50ml gin miniatures – all have been going down well until last weekend when he opened the window to reveal – pink gin.  “Yuk!” we cried in unison on spotting the colour: B3rry Pink Gin would, we’d already decided, taste overly sweet and we’d hate it.  As far as we’re concerned these distillers are just catering for juvenile taste buds – alcopops with a hint of juniper.

Well, we’ve both been decrying pre-made pink gin since starting this blog over three years ago.  In our view only a traditional mix using Angostura Bitters – as my grandpa enjoyed every lunchtime well into his nineties – is acceptable.  So, into the fridge went Anno’s B3rry Pink Gin, to be perhaps offered over Christmas to a millennial should one show up.

A couple of days later however – and I put this down to having slathered some dodgy body lotion all over myself from the beauty box – I randomly removed the little bottle from the fridge, opened the lid and declared: “Yuk – just as I expected it to smell!”  Simultaneously, Benylin cough medicine came to mind, which I don’t actually mind – so took a small swig, still perceiving it too sweet for a gin…

“Oh well, in for a penny …”

Having got this far, the rest of the pink stuff went in a glass with loads of ice and double the tonic – well, reader, as it states on the side of the bottle, “the spirit of alchemy” does indeed exist.  And I need to eat several hats, as does Gin Lover Two.  Anno B3rry Pink Gin is delicious – the three berries (hence its name) include strawberry, blackberry and elderberry, which are the sweet elements; but this 40^% spirit is rescued for us, perhaps, by the slight bitterness of cocoa, the bite from the cardamom, along with the orange.

So, thank you, Anno; we may have to eat our hats, but at least we’ll be trying more pink gins in the future!

Anno B3rry Pink Gin can be purchased from the distiller or online for just over £30