Black Garlic Vodka

Black Garlic Vodka is from the Silver Circle Distillery in South Wales, one of a growing number of Welsh craft distilleries producing unusual spirits.

The Silver Circle Distillery is in the village of Catbrook, eight miles north of Chepstow and eight miles south of Monmouth, in South Wales. They’re one of a growing number of Welsh distilleries that are really experimenting with flavours.

While their Wye Valley Gin is a classic gin made using local botanicals, they’ve also produced a Catbrook Honey Gin, which uses honey from beehives at the distillery, and a Damson Negroni, a unique cocktail in a bottle. I love distilleries that enjoy experimenting and playing about with spirits, flavours, and local ingredients.

I recently enjoyed a week with my wife and a couple of friends of ours at a place called The Clock House in Tal-y-Coed, a few miles west of Monmouth. It was a wonderful and peaceful place to stay, with walks on our doorstep and the lovely town of Monmouth just a short drive away to stock up on our food (and drink) supplies.

The owner, Tom, surprised us on the first night with some samples he’d picked up from the Silver Circle Distillery. He also has a wine shop in Monmouth, Fingal Rock, so is interested in wines and spirits and keen to help promote local producers.

What is Black Garlic?

Black garlic is not a separate type of garlic but simply regular garlic that has been turned black. This doesn’t mean you leave it lying around for a while, as everyone knows that if you do that the garlic just goes soft and becomes unusable.

Black garlic is made by gently heating garlic bulbs for a few weeks in a humid environment, which turns the individual cloves dark brown or black. It also changes the flavour so that instead of the pungent garlic flavour you get a garlic that is a little bit sweeter and more subtle in taste. It’s used in cooking, or just eaten raw as it’s thought by some people to have medicinal properties, and to make you live longer. It’s probably less effective at seeing off vampires.

How to Make Black Garlic at Home

Making Black Garlic Vodka

You can also use black garlic to infuse vodka and create a vodka that has a very subtle taste to it. You can try infusing vodka with regular white garlic, but the white garlic is so strong that it should only take a few days. In either case you’ll produce a vodka that goes well in a Bloody Mary.

Tasting Black Garlic Vodka

This vodka does pretty much what it says on the tin. The aroma is very slightly garlicky, though the garlic is more evident when you taste it. You do need to like garlic if you’re going to sample this vodka, and you’re not likely to drink it neat for more than a few sips. And I like garlic!

It’s interesting that the distillery sells it as part of a Bloody Mary kit, as with the rest of the small bottle I made two Bloody Marys, and they were killer! I was pretty pleased as – confession time – although I love Bloody Marys I’d never made one in my life. I put a dash too much tabasco and Worcestershire sauce in, but that didn’t matter as we like our drinks and food to be spicy. You could certainly still taste the garlic, and it definitely added a zing to the drink.