The Smoking Camel partners with Brookie’s Gin to create Turkish Delight Gin

Byron Bay’s newest Middle Eastern restaurant, The Smoking Camel, has partnered with Cape Byron Distillery’s Brookie’s Gin to create a Turkish Delight Gin.

A passion project between two brands, owners Kim Stephen (The Smoking Camel) and Eddie Brook (Brookie’s Gin) created the gin to represent the close-knit Byron Bay community. It combines The Smoking Camel’s signature Middle Eastern style with Brookie’s gin.

The Turkish Delight Gin infuses Brookie’s Gin with fragrant rose, orange blossom, and Meyer lemon balanced with a touch of sweetness.

Using natural indigenous ingredients, it combines the fragrant white aspen (which tastes like lemon gelato) and native raspberries harvested from the Cape Byron Distillery rainforest distilled into Brookie’s gin before introducing rose, sweet lemon and orange blossom to create the unique Turkish Delight Gin.

The gin was created with the help of Eddie Brook’s mum, Pam Brook. She says Brookie’s Turkish Delight was made not from the flavours of commercial Turkish Delight, but from her memories of tastes and smells of exotic Turkish sweet shops in inner Melbourne.

“Entering these stores as a child I was enveloped in the scents of rose and orange blossom, surrounded by luscious, sweet sticky pastries, aromas of roasted nuts and sticky honey sweetness,” remembers Brook.

The Smoking Camel will feature the gin in one of its signature drinks the ‘Turkish Delight’. The cocktail combines Brookie’s Turkish Delight Gin, pomegranate, cranberry, rose, lime and foam to evoke the flavours of the Middle East. The foam adds a Byron Bay beachy touch.

The Smoking Camel co-owner Kim Stephen says “I am so excited to be collaborating with Eddie and the Brookie’s Gin team on this project. Eddie and I have been friends for a long time and, having built businesses side by side in Byron, it’s very cool to be able to do something together that combines both of our passions.”

The Smoking Camel x Brookie’s Turkish Delight Gin is exclusively available in The Smoking Camel, Light Years Asian Diner, and Moonlight Japanese, and through the Cape Byron Distillery website (www.capebyrondistillery.com), the Cellar Door in Byron and local bottle shops.

There are a few launch events and Pop-Ups happening to celebrate the launch around Byron Bay, Noosa and Newcastle. Check out all the details here.