Shortcross Gin Small Batch Gin Shortcross Gin

Our distillery stands proud as Northern Ireland’s first award winning craft distillery and home to Ireland’s Most Awarded Gin, Shortcross Gin.

Rademon Estate Distillery is nestled within the heart of the historic 500-acre estate in Co. Down, founded in 2012 by Fiona and David Boyd-Armstrong. The husband and wife team set out to create a gin with a vision of re-defining what an Irish gin should and could be, while becoming the first gin to be distilled in Northern Ireland.

Building our distillery and creating Shortcross Gin has been a true love affair for both of us. We wanted to rekindle a distilling tradition that spans back centuries in Ireland. It has taken time to build and create our distillery, to travel the world and craft our skills.

We hand bottle and wax dip each and every bottle. The process may be slow but it’s a true craft. Each Shortcross bottle is as unique as its new owners.

The name ‘Shortcross Gin’ originates from the Distillery’s local village, Crossgar. In Gaelic or Irish, Crossgar means the ‘Short Cross’, so we are proud to have our village name as well as a Shortcross Penny on every bottle we produce.

When creating Shortcross Gin we aspired to create something unique, that was reminiscent of our surrounding forests and gardens here at our home, Rademon Estate.
1. Dense, lush, verdant and alive with nature, it’s a playground of botanicals. We forage Wild Clover giving a delicate essence of wild meadows.

2. Elderflowers & Elderberries combine to create both uplifting floral notes and smooth sweet flavours, while our Apples, picked from the estates Walled Garden contribute fresh aromas and lively sweet notes.

3. Our final recipe remains close to our hearts, but we include Juniper, Coriander, Citrus Peels, Cinnamon and Cassia to which we blend with our very own pure, fresh water drawn from our historic estate well.

Our stills are like no others on the island of Ireland, hand crafted in copper, an infusion of old and new technology, and perfectly suited for distilling the essence of our botanicals here at Rademon Estate Distillery. 

Why copper? Aside from being easy to shape and form into the beautiful stills here at Rademon Estate Distillery, copper plays a key roll in promoting flavour development in our spirits. The copper interacts with the spirit vapour as it passes through our stills, removing harsh notes while giving our final spirit a fuller, more rounded flavour profile, and of course giving our spirits that signature Shortcross smoothness.

Our original Still is a 450L Copper Pot Still with two seven plate enrichment columns. Our columns, known as enrichment columns, are key to the unique flavours and aromas in Shortcross Gin. They allow us to enrich more flavour and aroma into our spirits than what would be possible with a pot still on its own. This means that each batch of spirits is full of the flavours, aromas and oils of our botanicals creating a taste and aroma rich gin.

In early 2018 and after four years of crafting Shortcross Gin and bringing our first batches of Irish Whiskey to life on our original 450L Copper Pot Still, we installed our new 1,071L Copper Pot Still with two 10 plate enrichment columns.

This still has all the bells and whistles that any discerning distiller could ask for. While we can operate it with the two columns in sequence when distilling Shortcross Gin, our head distiller David Boyd-Armstrong has taken to his new found love of its vapour infusion basket, also known as a Carterhead, to craft yet more delicate flavours and aromas from our botanicals.

The first spirit to be developed exclusively on this still is our new Shortcross Rosie’s Garden Gin, a pink gin packed with Strawberries and Raspberries, and vapour infused Lavender and Camomile, simply perfect for summer sipping!