Little Bird Gin

Vegan Gin

Imagination

Often the best ideas develop when least expected and Little Bird Gin is no exception. Food, laughter and cocktails brought a group of good friends together one night in Peckham Rye, the neighbourhood in London where we live. Not wishing to idealize the evening but this gathering underpins the entire Little Bird story.

Perhaps we should explain that gin has always captured our imagination.  It’s been our passion and  tipple of choice – long before it began its much talked about renaissance. We had explored, tasted, sipped and supped – meandering our merry way through the gin that was available at the time. Chatter around the table turned to what an adventure it would be to craft our own gin …and a spark of an idea became a flame and an idea was born.

Our minds were buzzing with ideas for blends and botanicals. Our gin would be distinctive and handcrafted in micro-btaches batches in London, using just 10 botanicals. Furthermore we would be a London Dry style, meaning no artificial flavourings, colours or sweeteners are allowed before or after distillation – a little detail that we feel very strongly about and Vegan too!

Our imaginations, excitement and enthusiasm carried us through and into the next few months and with the help and belief of some very willing friends and neighbours, we tasted and tested various recipes and tweaks – over 40 in total – until we reached the perfect balance of citrus with a smooth finish. Little Bird’s unique blend of pink grapefruit, sweet orange peel and ginger brings crisp citrus noteswhilst 7 more botanicals add to our smooth, fresh flavour.

MISS GINGER

A design was needed for our new gin that would be memorable but most importantly original. We asked a designer friend for her help. Our brief was simple, we wanted something that would capture our love of all things vintage. We immediately feel in love with the old school glamour and vintage vibe of our newly designed label.  The little bird tattoo on our vintage-cladd mascot is where we took our name from….Little Bird Gin.

We were inspired by the work of artist Alberto Vargas who in the 1940’s began painting pin-up girls, known as ‘Vargas Girls’, for Esquire Magazine. Pin-ups were used as a form of aircraft graffiti and these colourful paintings were draped over the nose and sides of airplanes. Often referred to as nose-art, they were painted to inspire and motivate, whilst also bringing good luck. Miss Ginger was illustrated for the same reasons, bringing her unique nostalgic style to our #independentspirit.

How we like it