A Week on the Estate: Parched June, Owl Census & Tristan’s Alchemy

That said, there’s always plenty to be done across our arable land, whatever the weather’s doing. The new vineyards are growing apace and Andy and Jonny did a spot of inter-alley power harrowing. Elsewhere, the pea-and-oat mix is enjoying the sunshine but, like much of our wild and farmed flora, could do with a long soak. We aim to harvest the pea-and-oat mix as a home-grown feed to supplement the foraging diets of our Lincolnshire Buff chickens and Norfolk Black turkeys.

Our wild spaces are doing well too. Bird guru and licensed ringer Jim Lennon took a roll-call of some of our owl and kestrel boxes. Highlights from Jim’s notes include:

– Female barn owl on 1+ egg at Driby

– 3 x jackdaw chicks ringed near Manor Farm

– Last year’s female barn owl on 3 x chicks or eggs near the Old Rectory

– New female barn owl ringed on 4 x eggs, in company with male ringed near the Ovens last year

– 1 x jackdaw chick ringed at Ketsby

– 1 x cold, abandoned kestrel egg on Bluestone Heath Road

Jim Lennon and Adrian Blackburn will be back later in the summer with more good news. In the meantime, Jim is off to the Outer Hebrides for five weeks to monitor seabirds. We’re a little bit jealous.

Finally, and in case you missed it, Master Distiller Tristan Jørgensen is leaving the Massingberd-Mundy Distillery for fresh pastures. In last week’s blog, we looked back at four years of botanical alchemy. Click HERE for tastes, textures, history, craftsmanship, business basics, awards and a splash of creativity.

We’re losing Tristan but we’ve gained so much from his time with us. We’ve seen world-beating artisan gins devised from scratch. We’ve tasted a beguiling medley of botanicals inspired by our native flora and our long history. We’ve been inspired by our loyal, discerning customers and retailers, and we’ve made new friends over a snifter or two. We’ve seen awards galore, plaudits from gin aficionados and alchemy in action.

We know we’re biased but Tristan’s last Massingberd-Mundy limited edition is a bobby-dazzler. Nettle Infused Burrell’s Dry Gin is a savoury delight that embodies our landscape and reveals its depth one texture at a time. The citrus-forward edge of award-winning Burrell’s Dry is paired with freshly (and carefully) picked wild nettles from the distillery garden. The resulting blend greets you with aromas of grateful greenery after a summer shower and follows up with a complex earthiness lifted by a tang from the stingers.

Whether you’re a gin aficionado or not, it’s a truly fascinating tipple. Tristan has distilled fewer than 100 bottles of Nettle Infused. To check availability, click HERE.

Tristan will call last orders at 12-noon on Tuesday 20th June. We’ll then be closed to online orders until our new distiller takes charge in the not-too-distant future. To claim your piece of distilling history while stocks last, head to our gin page HERE.

If you’d like to share your views on anything you’ve read here, we’d love to hear from you. Just head to our Facebook page HERE and comment beneath the latest blog post. As ever, thanks for your support.