Design award for Northern Irish Boatyard Gin

Boatyard Distillery in Northern Ireland has won a second design and packaging award from Spirits Business in Britain for its unique double gin.

The small batch distillery, based near Enniskillen in county Fermanagh, won the prestigious award for its recently launched Old Tom Double Gin, which is aged in first-fill bourbon barrels from Kentucky.

The distillery won the award in the Spirit Design Masters. It followed the same award for its original gin bottle in December 2016.

Joe McGirr, the founder and managing director of Boatyard Distillery, commenting on the latest award, says: "We are thrilled to have won this important industry award for the second time in two years.

"We've taken our time to create a distinctive packaging reflecting the quality of our unique double gin. The labels used on our bottles are printed on a traditional 1960's letterpress and the font we chose was actually inspired by an old receipt I found from the first tractor my father ever bought, giving it an authentic and craft feel."

Old Tom, a recent launch by the distillery, is an aged spirit sweetened with Fermanagh honey to give the gin a distinctive Old Tom flavour. It's a London Dry that's slightly drier than the traditional Dutch Jenever.

Boatyard award-winning gin was launched by Mr McGirr, who has vast experience in the distilling industry, in 2016 and is distilled in a former boat house overlooking picturesque Lough Erne in Fermanagh.

Boatyard is the first gin to be distilled in Fermanagh in over a century and is now among a cluster of gins being produced in Northern Ireland.

The company uses a double contact technique for the gin that results in an even more pronounced juniper flavour. The collected spirit is infused and distilled with carefully selected, organic botanicals which include 'sweet gale', a wild growing botanical foraged from Mr McGirr's family farm in Fermanagh.

The distillery began producing its double gin more than a year ago. Mr McGirr has also announced plans to produce the first Irish whiskey in Fermanagh since the 1880s. It also plans to launch a vodka later in the year.