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In the same way that whisky is a Scottish drink, you might think of gin as being a characteristically English drink.

The Dutch might disagree but, for me anyway, gin is as English as cucumber sandwiches.

Hogarth’s pictures of Gin Lane have something to do with it but it’s also the idea of whiskery old colonial administrators trying to ward off malaria with a stiff G ‘n’ T.

Perhaps it’s just the name and style of some of the gin brands. London gin refers to a method of distilling the spirit rather than where it is made but it still makes the stuff sound unquestionably English.

If we take another tack, you couldn’t make your product more closely aligned with England than by calling it Beefeater Gin.

However, the perception that gin is English is being chipped away at by a new brand of hand-made, small batch gin with a distinctly Scottish character.

Caorunn is made at the Balmenach distillery in Speyside. It’s a working malt whisky distillery but it has recently started producing gin in a unique berry chamber in which the vaporised spirit is passed through trays of flavouring botanicals.

I met up with the brand’s gin master Simon Buley earlier this week. He says that one of the main reasons that he started making the gin is that he had been producing whisky at the distillery for the last twelve years but, because of the lengthy maturing process, had still not tasted a drop of the stuff.

With gin, he could make it in the afternoon and taste it the same day.

What gives Caorunn its Scottish character is the Celtic botanicals used to infuse the spirit. As well as the usual juniper, angelica and so on found in most gins, Caorunn uses heather, bog myrtle, rowan berry, dandelion and Coul Blush Apple, a type of fruit which was developed in Ross-shire.

The name comes from karoon, the Gaelic for rowan berry.

It has a very crisp, citrus flavour but is also slightly spicy. It’s probably my imagination but it tastes slightly better if you ‘Slainte!’ rather than ‘Cheers!’ when drinking it.

We drank it in cocktails made by Ervin Trykowski of Glasgow’s Ivy Bar. There is a long recipe list of Caorunn cocktails here.

If you want to try Caorunn then the following 5pm members stock it:

Edinburgh: Sygn, The Westroom, Monteiths, Hawke and Hunter, Ghillie Dhu, Hotel Du Vin and Malmaison.

In Glasgow, go and see Ervin or head to: The Millhouse, Oran Mor, the Ubiquitous Chip, Stravaigin, Brel, The Bath Street Pony, Urban Bar and Brasserie, Lucky 7 Canteen, Macsorley’s, Cottiers, Artto Hotel, Cafe Source and Maggie May’s.

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