Chase Presents... Rock The Farm

On a surprisingly pleasant Sunday morning a crowd from “the industry” boarded a bus to Hereford for a special event run generously by William Chase and his team – Rock the Farm. On arrival the lovely marketing girls (thanks Hattie!) dished out the wrist bands, we then pitched out tent and headed out for pizza and the first drink of the day: HOBSONS ALE. This is from a local brewery and I tried the Twisted Spire. This was really fruity and a great summer drink, I will look out for it again in London. They also have an ale – Old Prickly - which donates money from every pint sold to hedgehog preservation, LOVE it!

Next we signed up for a farm tour led by eldest brother Harry Chase. This was one of the most interesting parts of the visit for me, really seeing the spread of the farm including fields of potatoes (on a 1 in 5 year rotation) interspersed with orchards and they also raise cattle on the side. (The waste is invaluable!) This year has not been kind with the rain and wind, and many of the fields had patches completely flattened with a fifth of the oil seed crop was lost. It was especially interesting to talk about biodynamics, how the moon affects the growing cycles and also see techniques – like drip irrigation – that have been taken from Argentinean wineries and used in an English orchard for the younger trees. It was also, simply, beautiful.

Onto the tasting room and for the first time I was half way convinced by Chartreuse. This is a spirit I had always decidedly avoided, as it normally came out at the end of a dinner party with somewhat middle class friends or I remember my dad putting it in hot chocolate when ski-ing. It comes in two colours, who knew?! The green, a blend of 130 herbs still made by monks, is 55% so this explains my revulsion at drinking it straight from the off however the yellow! The yellow has the addition of honey and this sweetness really rounds the bitterness of the green herbs and would be lovely, I think, with a cream soda mixer. As for the green, add some limoncello, soda and some citrus and this is a great refreshing drink to mix up for friends and they will be surprised by what is in it!

Onto the cider next, another product from Hereford and we had Tom Oliver, the man himself, to talk us through the range of Olivers Ciders. What really stood out for me was the medium dry Perry blend. This was so good I would genuinely consider replacing sparkling wine at an event for this bubbly goodness, wonder who would notice…? There “premium” range is even made in the champenois method and then we moved onto the vintage stuff, from 2010. “Blue cheese!” I declared as my mouth ran ahead of my brain but in fact this is correct, and strange as it sounds it was very tasty but would go better with food. You cannot deny the passion that drives these guys too.

Onto the Chase stand and we worked our way through, well, everything! And those boys have been busy with cask finishes from Bourbon, Islay Whisky, Brandy, Rum…and then there is the Raspberry Vodka, Rhubarb Vodka, Juniper Vodka (?), Marmalade Vodka and of course the classic Chase that is still one of the creamiest vodkas I have encountered and the single product that has held me captive since they started. One last look around led us to the Top Secret products, and yes of course we tried the Stupidly Hot Vodka. Perhaps I had tasted too much by then but it was, well, nice… Yes there was burn but I think for a Bloody Mary with a kick you couldn’t do better!

So after that we descended into general bad behaviour and debauchery with music from Reverend and the Makers amongst others and an awful lot of dancing.

Thanks to my tent buddies Gin Monkey and Sarah (who has a great post found here), the LCC crew for an awesome time, the Exhibit guys for rocking with us, all the producers who shared their passion and products and of course the WHOLE CHASE TEAM for their fearless 2^nd year of entertaining some of the worst behaved crowd around! 

Presenting...Chase Vodka and Williams Gin

I won’t go into the mission that was dealing with the new Gouman Grosvenor hotel – needless to say they are missing their bar manager who is on paternity leave – but made it to an upstairs room for a trade masterclass with James Chase.

James is really personable guy with great knowledge and an inexhaustible work ethic, bombing up and down the country to educate us about the family run property that is Chase. The brand started with the delicious potato product that we all know – Tyrells crisps. On a USA business trip to investigate deep frying, they were invited “round the back” of one small manufacturers to see their small time brewing facilities and there was the eureka moment

“This vodka tastes of something”

So this moment paired with the secretaries’ clear ability to guess the base product of the bottle they returned with (potatoes) and quantities of small potatoes that were not put through for crisps gave way to vodka and before they knew it (well another business trip including Austria this time – source of their still) they had a 3000l still with a rectifying column so large it emerged from the roof.

So Chase English potato vodka was born and is entirely produced by Chase from potatoes to vodka to maintain quality; quite frankly, it shows.

Chase Vodka

The nose is so different from most vodkas with a sweet creamy almost toasted marshmallow nose. The palate has the same creamy buttery potato mash flavour with some spice notes and an oily texture that combine to give a really long finish. This is very smooth and rich and tastes buttery to the end.

Serve: with soda water and a squeeze of lemon to cut the oily texture

When the Chase brains got buzzing next they moved to gin. Back to Austria for a 300l still with three rectifying points where the gin sits in the belly and above is a “pillowcase” filled with their 11 chosen botanicals – including barley apples, hops and elderflower. They are also moving towards growing all their own botanicals and hope to see this come to fruition in 2012 with new greenhouse plans. However, the potato vodka had too much flavour so they thought again about the local products and came up with…

Naked Chase (apple based spirit)

The nose implies spice and high alcohol but the palate is much more pleasant, smooth and although still quite raw there is a remaining sweetness and spice in between layers.

Serve: in a Vesper with Chase Vodka

William Chase Gin

Distilled to 48% to retain the flavor is not just a tag line. This is so smooth and strangely is very reflective of the creamy full body of the vodka. Then comes the juniper so essential to gin (debate still raging!) and then sweet citrus, next comes the clear elderflower notes though not sure I got hops.

Serve: as a gin and juice with organic cox apple juice

Lastly those crazy guys got experimenting with flavours (Christmas trees don’t work if you were wondering!) and came up with what is now a regular in their line –

Chase (Seville) Marmalde Vodka

Straw colour, the nose is of sweet zest oils. The more you get into this, the longer it lingers, the sweeter it grows on the palate making it definitely – for me – one to mix rather than one to drink straight. Breakfast martini, spice it up for winter warmers, the possibilities of this one are great.

Serve: with ginger beer, few drops of bitters and a squeeze of lime

So they do not grow the oranges themselves but they do make the marmalade that gets infused with the orange skins. I’ll leave you with an interesting fact: it takes 25kg of potatoes to make just one bottle of Chase Vodka

To look out for:

- Aged vodka expressions

- Chili infused vodka

- Rock the Farm – the generously put on industry festival in July