Sweetdram Scottish Escubac 700ml

Escubac is a delicious, spicy and citrusy alternative to Gin, a reinvention of an old style of spicy yellow liqueur that originated in Tudor England as ‘usquebaugh’ (a sort of ancestor of whisky). After being adopted by the French, and renamed Escubac, the drink eventually vanished into the ether. Or so we thought. Enter Daniel Fisher and Andrew MacLeod Smith.

To start, Sweetdram macerate 14 botanicals, including caraway, cardamom, cubeb, lemon and bitter orange and citrus, for 72 hours, then slowly distil them using a bespoke, teardrop-shaped copper still (built by Vendome Copper & Brass Works of Kentucky). Designed by the Sweetdram team, this still mimics the science of early French stills with the line arm corkscrewing upwards for maximum copper contact & reflux resulting in a super-light and aromatic spirit.

Following distillation, the spirit is then very lightly sweetened with golden raisins and a small amount of sugar (Escubac contains four times less sugar than the average liqueur), and tinted a light straw-yellow with strands of saffron.