A season of good weather can be the perfect tonic for gin producers but when it matters it all comes down to the key ingredients.

The varieties of gin coming from Scotland are now far and wide with the country responsible for 70% of the spirit's production.

A lack of sloe berries in Angus, despite an average dry spring followed by a similarly average summer with no great increase in rainfall, has caused problems for one of the country's smallest producers, which has lost out on a key product.

The Gin Bothy in Lintrathen relies on sloe berries for one of its ten different flavours.

They are in short supply at a time when owner Kim Cameron would be looking to soak them in the spirit ahead of the product hitting the shelves next May.

It is a unique problem for a unique company based near Kirriemuir in Angus which produces anything between 350 to 1000 bottles of gin a week, depending on the available ingredients of course.

Ms Cameron told STV News: "The sloe berries that we would tend to be looking to gather at this time of year... there is a lot less than there have been in previous years.

"Sloes aren't commercially farmed in the same way as other berries, it wouldn't be a berry that is mass produced for supermarkets or farms.

"It's still a foraged fruit that people would tend to pick themselves as opposed to be from a commercial point of view.

"There are not many people that make sloe gin in Scotland that would be producing at the level I am at."

The Gin Bothy follows a seasonal fruit calendar depending on what is available with raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and rhubarb all farmed.

Around November and December they also make a mulled gin which proves a big hit during the festive period.

That is where the focus now lies for Ms Cameron in her small production space over the next few weeks.

She added: "The alternative I have is to our sloe gin is a raspberry gin which is our best seller. We have those in abundance. There's just less sloes about this year.

"For example, our strawberry and blueberry gin is only available at certain times of the year and I don't import any of the fruit, it's all sourced locally.

"So if I don't have sloe berries I don't have sloe gin and that was a decision we made as part of the Gin Bothy - we use local, seasonal fruit."

She added: "Because of the range we have the raspberry gin is our best seller so the alternative I can offer customers is that which we sell all year round.

"We're really lucky we have raspberries in this area from early April right through to this the end of the season now, but we've been lucky to pick enough for the whole season."

Elsewhere, celebrating one year since the opening of its distillery, Isle of Harris Gin has gone on to become a popular brand in a relatively short space of time. Almost as short as the company's production line itself.

The Hebridean distiller uses sugar kelp seaweed from the shoreline of the islands for its unique flavour.

Divers from the area take the plunge themselves to hand-cut the sugar from the seabed, which does not have the same issue as sloe berries in the winter weather.

Production manager Kenny Mclean told STV the company gets around this by being smart with its supplies.

He said: "It's quite benign so the weather is always the same below sea level so it's more a case of if it's bad weather our diver can't dive for it.

"We mitigate that by ordering well in advance and keeping sufficient stocks of it.

"There are lots of different spices that go into these things. The unique ingredient we put into our gin is sugar kelp which also has to be harvested.

"A diver has to go down and hand dive for it and cut it. We have to be very careful that we order up stock well ahead and we have to be mindful of the weather because in wintertime you don't want to be diving around the shoreline in winter.

"We work very closely with our local supplier up here; our supply chain is very short, the sugar kelp is harvested here locally and it's dried locally and shipped so very few miles to go."