Farewell 2022 and welcome 2023

Happy New Year from all of us at Gasm Drinks! The end of 2022 was as busy as expected, but that’s exactly how we like it. We’d like to thank everyone who became a Gasm customer last year, both those who we met in person and those who wisely chose to purchase flavoured Prosecco style drinks online  . 

Let’s talk about the countryside

As we look forward to another year of bringing Gasm—which we create by blending finest-quality sparkling wine with British fruit gins— to discerning grown-ups the world over, we thought it might be nice to write about the passion we have for the rural way of life. Countryside traditions such as farming, forestry and shooting often get a bad press but we think that’s quite wrong: they’re the lifeblood of many rural communities. The country way of life is socially, economically and environmentally beneficial: so purchase flavoured Prosecco style drinks online, pop open a fizz cocktail, and we’ll have a go at addressing a couple of reasons why…

Living off the land

We are blessed to leave in a country filled with an abundance of produce. Eating things which grow and live here is the most sustainable way to feed the nation. Critics of shooting often fail to acknowledge that its primary purpose is to provide food; no-one has ever thrown away a brace of pheasant. Game is either eaten by the people who hunted it or sold via local supply chains, providing nutritious, inexpensive food without the need for air miles or a corporate retail process.

Something special is a cork pop away

Shooting is also great fun and good for rural economies. It’s very sociable, good exercise and a healthy outdoor pursuit. Now of course you don’t need to be into shooting and country sports to be a Gasm devotee, but if you are, there’s absolutely nothing better with which to wet the whistle than Sloeberry Gasm. We worked with a renowned sommelier to perfect it, so it’s far better than you could expect to mix yourself. It’s also much easier to enjoy, as you can simply pop the cork and pour into a ‘plastic crystal’ flute. This removes the faff of having to take a bottle of fizz and a sloe gin, as well as making sure that your refreshing beverage has the perfect balance of fruity sparkling wine and a warming kick from the glorious fruit gin. If you don’t believe us, buy flavoured Prosecco style Gasm online and see for yourself!

There’s more to farming than ‘meats’ the eye

Now that we’ve made a case for game, the ultimate nutrient-dense, abundant and sustainable food, it’s worth turning briefly to British meat production. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated that reducing the consumption of meat is vital to lowering carbon emissions and addressing climate change. As a consequence, many people now believe that importing vegetables or meat alternatives from overseas (and therefore not supporting British farmers) is the most responsible way to eat. The usual arguments against this centre on the vast amounts of water it takes to grow things like avocados and Quorn and the thousands of air miles it takes to ship them around the world. But this is an argument against veganism and vegetarianism— not an argument in support of farmers.

Livestock turn nothing into something

The fact that is so often overlooked by those who make an environmental case against British meat farming is that animals, especially sheep, graze on land that is not otherwise arable. That is, farmland that cannot be ploughed and is therefore impossible to grow crops on. Roadside hills, small, bumpy fills and the like can’t be used for anything other than growing grass. This is hardly a small proportion of fields, either. In fact, 65% of UK farmland is only suitable for grazing.

The bigger picture

Grass grows where crops cannot. This grass is eaten by sheep and other animals and becomes delicious food filled with protein, iron and vitamins (remarkable since grass itself is inedible for humans). But that’s not all, the grass also holds vast amounts of CO2 and actively absorbs lots more from the atmosphere.  While it is estimated that meat farming is responsible for around 10% of carbon emissions, this estimate fails to acknowledge farmland’s acting as a carbon sink. It also doesn’t consider that the land animals graze on is being used the only way it can, or the huge amount of emissions and water waste created by sourcing meat alternatives from overseas. If all this were taken into account, the conclusion would be that eating responsibly farmed, Red Tractor grass-fed meat is actually a climate positive solution.

The road to pleasure

We’re enormously proud to live in Wales and support British farming and traditional countryside pursuits. We’re also chuffed to bits with our convenient, delicious and oh-so unique range of glorious fizz cocktails. The best way to encourage us to keep doing what we’re doing is to purchase flavoured Prosecco style drinks online, which you can do here. We’ll deliver our intensely pleasurable bottles of loveliness right to your door!