Two ways to enjoy Oxford Rye, from The Oxford Artisan Distillery

This post contains items gifted by The Oxford Artisan Distillery.

Over the past eighteen months, like many people during the pandemic, we’ve drunk more at home. With pubs and restaurants closed, it’s hardly surprising is it? Noticeably though we’ve enjoyed drinking more spirits than before, and have been experimenting to find a drink that we both like equally as much, rather than having a couple of bottles on the go.

So when I was offered the chance to try what’s described as “a unique English spirit” I was keen to find out more. MOH was also keen to try this telling me it would be like a bourbon - and that was before it even arrived.

When it arrived, it was confirmed as a ‘rye spirit’ and not a ‘rye whisky’ - you, like us might be wondering what the difference is. A ‘rye spirit’ must be under three years old - so a ‘rye spirit’ it is. Or a liquid rye as it’s described.

Want to know more?

I thought you might. It’s distilled from ancient heritage rye, a commonly cultivated crop in pre-industrial England. It’s distilled twice and rested in American oak barrels. The heritage grains are chosen for their flavour and are grown mostly within 50 miles of Oxford. That brings another dimension - sustainability - the grains also improve the quality of the land and the wildlife by the farming methods which avoids using all pesticides and uses traditional methods to manage the land.

And it tastes good too

It has a distinctive flavour - there’s definitely vanilla and spice. MOH has a better ‘nose’ than me and regularly identifies ingredients in food, whereas I’m much more “I like that” - and I liked this. Looking at the tasting notes there’s also sandalwood and the spice is described as “nutty and spicy notes”.

To start with we tried it neat as we’d drink whisky, which for me is with a splash of water. And it was very drinkable, and a nice warming feel so would work well for an end of meal digestif.

The bottle also suggested trying it as a long drink, with ginger ale, Angostura bitters and lime - and with a warm, sunny day this weekend gave us the perfect time to try this. After a mostly lazy day interspersed with chores, knowing we had plans to sit and enjoy the garden we’d spent time working on, was a very good plan.

So that’s what we did - moving to the end of the garden to catch the last of the sun, we enjoyed an Oxford Rye take on a dark and stormy - on a day that, thankfully, was far from dark and stormy. While it was good neat, in my opinion this was better.

* With thanks to The Oxford Artisan Distillery for providing The Oxford Rye for me to try for the purposes of this review, all views and opinions are my own.

A deer nose job

It’s been a couple of years now since we got our new cushions, remember the ones with the matching crockery, yes those. The other night while getting comfortable I heard a bit of a rip, and that’s never a good sound is it? When I looked the rip was on the softer tweed just by the antler - the material there is soft and more delicate than the other two panels, but I was pretty sure I’d be able to fix it.

And so after formulating a bit of a plan, and hoping I might have some material I could use. When I looked more closely I realised that some of the stitching around the nose had also parted ways with the appliquéd fabric.

That felt like an easier place to start and so I found some red embroidery thread and a hoop and set to work to tack the fabric back together.

With that done and after a quick trim, it was almost as good as new - well, not quite new, but passable.

Which left the bigger job. My idea was to place a piece of material behind the hole and take it from there. I found this old t-shirt which was a good tonal match to the section that needed repairing. I decided to use half of one of the short sleeves, so much larger than the part to mend, and carefully attach that.

Then I used beige, blue and cream embroidery thread to catch the threads around the holes. While you can see the mending in the picture below, when you stand back it’s far less visible - and overall the cushion cover is much more durable than it was before I started!

But if you look quickly, it’s hardly noticeable - MOH only saw it when he looked more closely, so I’ll take that - and the deer cushion lives on. While looking at this more closely, as I did, I realised that this is a craft that would be great to learn - so watch this space!

My garden in May

May’s a great month, and not only because it’s my birthday month, but it’s the month that usually brings sun - and this year was no different, though since then it’s been a bit AWOL. But it’s good to look back over my pictures from the month and see the blue skies and enjoy the blooms from the Gertrude Jekyll rose which had plenty of flowers this month. And to marvel that our well known for its late flowering camellia, was still going strong this month - its latest ever, and no doubt a knock on from the peculiar weather in previous months.

The bluebells and sedums also enjoyed the month and looked good with a layer of camellia petal confetti among their greenery too. The rear of the garden was filled with the scent of lilac, and while we didn’t have many flowers on the tree, what we did have was powerful - and pretty.

May was also a windy month and we had at least three branches down, some of them bigger than others and some managing to balance themselves precariously on the fence, but just in a spot we couldn’t quite reach.

On the patio the border was full of greenery and the new additions of three stone spheres were almost, but not quite swallowed by it all. The alliums rose above it all and provided spheres of colour at a higher level, I think they’re increasing each year but it’s a slow process.

In other developments we did hang our new garden lights. After trying many types of lighting and approaches, this time we’ve gone for battery powered strings of lights across the garden, and they’re fab. I’m hoping we get much use out of them this year.

So that’s my May in the garden, how was yours?