If you’ve been watching our social media posts this week, you might’ve noticed there’s a new spirit in town.
Sunday night, we invited some friends to the Distillery to share the first sip of our new R&D Series, an experimental, small-batch product line that will be our home for innovation. The first two releases are gins – Formula #6, an American Dry Gin, and Formula #10, a Southern Gin – created in the lab at Old Dominick by our head distiller Alex Castle and her team.
Sunday’s event, called simply R&D, was a celebration of experimentation. We asked eight of Memphis’ finest bartenders to experiment with either R&D Series gin to build a cocktail inspired by a song from the Hi Records catalog. (Big thanks go to the Mitchell family for joining us on Sunday, and to Boo Mitchell for helping to select the songs – check out the playlist below to see what was in the mix.)
We invited a small group to join us to taste the gin, try the cocktails and share their feedback over eats and live music. Special thanks to our talented bartenders – Ben Williams, Bart Mallard, Q, Eric Martin, Morgan McKinney, Brad Pitts, David Hacking and Nick Lumpkin – and to the phenomenal Tia ‘Songbird’ Henderson, who serenaded us with Memphis soul.
The R&D Series gin will be available for purchase in the Old Dominick retail store at the Distillery, or you can try it in cocktails at bars and restaurants in Memphis and Nashville while it lasts.
All photos by Ben Powers / Red Deluxe
What else is up: we’ll be pouring Old Dominick cocktails at a super secret house show this weekend in Nashville with our girl Talibah Safiya. That’s all we can tell you – for now! – but if you keep an eye on our Instagram story you just might get a peek at the fun.
