You don’t have to make London Dry Gin in London, England. Turns out you don’t have to make it in Great Britain at all. Case in point: Master’s Selection London Dry Gin, which is made in Barcelona, Spain by a family-owned distillery that dates back to 1835.

Process-wise Master’s is a bit unique: Grain alcohol is redistilled in a pot still with Spanish estate-grown juniper, Spanish coriander, and Guatemalan cardamom. After this round, three separate macerations of Spanish citrus are introduced: sweet orange from Valencia, bitter orange from Seville, and lemons from Seville. Each of these macerations is rested separately for a full year being blended together and distilled again. At last, the juniper-coriander-cardamom distillate is blended with the citrus distillate and bottled in a cobalt blue (and, tragically, plastic-looking-but-actually-glass) decanter.

With all that talk of oranges, Master’s better pack some citrus power, and sure enough it does. In fact, there’s so much of it here you might mistake it for a citrus vodka instead of a gin. There’s ample sweetness here; rather than using just the peel as is traditional in gin, Master’s includes whole fruit, and some of that juiciness has found its way into the finished product. That’s not a complaint, and the citrus is well complemented here by the comparably modest juniper and coriander notes.

Ultimately and despite the convoluted production process, this is a perfectly drinkable but far from complex gin. Citrus, then juniper, then a dusting of Asian spice… that’s really about it. This isn’t a big martini gin (or much of a London Dry for that matter), but it’ll work with fruitier cocktails — or even sub in for orange-flavored vodka. Price is right, too.

87.8 proof.

B / $20 / mastersdrygin.com 

Master's Selection London Dry Gin

$20

8

Rating

8.0/10