Ten gins to try in different botanical styles
£ 29-£ 33 Widely available
Super-citrussy in its botanical mix and its flavour – lemons, oranges and blood grapefruit – but beautifully balanced, too, this is a seamless melding of flavours. Fantastic with tonic, but also in a silky-smooth martini. Alcohol 47.3%
Ki No Bi
£45-£ 59 Gerry’s, Harvey Nichols, Master of Malt, Soho Wine Supply, The Whisky Exchange Made mostly with Japanese botanicals (ginger, sancho peppers, shiso...), there’s a real deftness of touch here. The main flavour is yuzu, giving a citrussy lift. Can be drunk over ice or with tonic. Alc 45.7% £ 29-£ 33 Widely available
A dozen botanicals include cubeb berries, grains of paradise and elderflower. Mostly about flowers, flavour-wise – elderflower and rose petals in particular. A good gin if you’re not a big juniper lover. Alc 41.4%
Silent Pool
£ 37-£ 39.50 Marks & Spencer, Majestic, Tesco, Waitrose
With lavender, elderflower, camomile, linden flowers and pear among the botanicals, this is a soft, sweet-flavoured, distinctive gin – an early-summer English garden distilled. The polar opposite of a dry classic such as Tanqueray. Alc 43%
Made with 31 botanicals, 22 of them Islay-foraged plants such as bog myrtle, gorse flowers and meadowsweet. No single flavour dominates – there is a beautifully round, honeyed, heathery meadow-grass character to this. Alc 46%
Glendalough Wild Botanical Gin
£ 33-£ 36 Amazon UK, Master of Malt, Oddbins Classic gin base supported by more than a dozen locally foraged Irish plants such as yarrow, daisies, watermint and woodruff. Like lying on a summer hillside – combines sweet gorse notes, aromatic grasses and lemon balm. Complex and dry. Alc 41%
97
£ 27.48-£ 30 Cambridge Wine Merchants, Justerini & Brooks
This super-slender but indubitably classy Chardonnay is grown close to a series of Neolithic megalith ruins. Despite its graceful outlines, the wine strikes me as something of a megalith itself: staking out the historic arrival of the UK as a producing zone for fine still wine. It may not last the full 12,000 years, but it will certainly age beautifully for a decade or more. Alc 12.5% 98
Best in Show
£ 179 Widely available
An exceptional aged blanc de blancs that has developed wonderful toasty characters. Spectacular. Alc 12.3%