UP YOUR BRUNCH GAME!
by our Spiritual Adviser & mixologist extraordinaire, Simon Bracken.
I’ve got really fond childhood memories of jam. As a kid, the jam sandwich was always up there with the best of Australian culinary art. Up there with meat pies and fairy bread or some vegemite on wonder white…
I’ve got visions of Mum’s freshly made jam sandwiches after an afternoon game of street cricket. Jam on toast before my last-minute morning dash to the bus stop, jam on toast with three bites out of it looking like the Olympic torch getting carried high in front of me, guiding me to the bus stop with the sound of school shoes beating on the cul-de-sac asphalt, and books almost falling out of my backpack. The culinary revelation I had when I first mixed jam with peanut butter, and life would never seem the same again.
I’ve got good memories of jam. That fruity sweet, tangy paste that transforms any piece of white bread into a masterpiece.
These days, white bread has been replaced with fancy seeded sourdough, and my childhood visions of jam have been replaced with wonderful adult jam.
Brookie’s Slow Gin Jam.
Jam that’s made from Brookie’s gin-soaked Davidson plums.
Jam that’s made from 100% native Aussie ingredients.
Jam that feels a bit like a symphony orchestra playing Metallica in the amphitheatre of my mouth.
What makes Brookie’s Slow Gin Jam so unique is its story. That’s why I’m here, to tell you a little bit of the story; the way it comes to be a symphony orchestra playing Metallica in the amphitheatre of your mouth.
So it starts off with the same vision that underpins everything we do at Brookie’s; how do we make the tastiest product using native ingredients and supporting local producers, in the most environmentally mindful way possible. Brookie’s Slow Gin Jam was birthed out of this vision, it was birthed out of the fact that after every batch of Brookie’s Slow Gin we have a surplus of gin-soaked Davidson plums—gin-soaked plums that are just begging to be repurposed… so we listened.
We combine our re-purposed gin-soaked plums with fresh Davidson plums. We have a large Davidson plum planting on our rainforest property (over 1,000 Davidson plum trees) and the rest, we source locally. By marrying the bright, citric and tangy fresh Davidson Plums with our gin-botanical soaked Davidson Plums we get a beautiful depth of flavour and we don't waste a thing!
Now, even though our jam uses gin-soaked plums, it is alcohol-free and given the bounty of health benefits the Davidson plum boasts, you can feel good about yourself as you give your taste buds an opportunity to feel good about themselves too.
Brookie’s Slow Gin Jam is a bit like a New Years Eve sky full of flavour fireworks. Expect rich plum flavours with a perfect balance of tartness and sweetness. It’s a great addition to some fancy sourdough, an even fancier cheeseboard or a range of delicious cocktails. In fact, one of our all-time favourite cocktails here at Brookie’s is a Rainforest Sour, which uses our Davidson Plum Slow Gin Jam along with Slow Gin, lemon juice and aquafaba. For all you eager cocktail apprentices out there, click here if you want to know more about how to make the Rainforest Sour.
All in all, we love that we are able to re-purpose and re-use native ingredients and continue our pursuit of sustainability and creating a closed feedback loop at our distillery (where we aim to not waste anything). We absolutely love the story of our Slow Gin Jam, we love the taste of it even more, and we hope you will too!
Brookie's Byron Slow GinJam is available online, at our cellar door and a few selected retailers.
