Best Flavoured Gins for 2022
Flavoured gins are all the rage and the difference is not just the flavour (normal gins always have juniper berries as the dominant flavour) but also the colour, alcoholic strength, texture and ultimately taste. The family of flavoured gins is vast and encompasses sloe gins (think Monkey 47), pink gins (Warner’s, Chase, Gordon Pink) and flavoured gins (G’vine June and Malfy).
Taste – Fruit and vegetable-based natural flavours are all the rage. Think Elderflower, Peach, Pear, Apple, Rhubarb (it's not just in pies) and Lime. How do we get such marvellous flavours in our gin? Often it can be as simple as the blending of concentrates of these fruit/vegetable gins with normal gin. The key is to focus on natural occurring flavours as opposed to artificial flavours that are often found in candy and cheaper drinks.
Taste can also come from the vessels in which the Gins are kept. We don’t normally age gins in barrels in a similar fashion to whisky, but when left to infuse for a few months in chardonnay or cognac barrels the gins do transform to take on the properties of the barrels in which they have been aged. This includes colour (think golden to intense browns) to the woodiness of the barrel.
Colour – Here again there is a big difference between flavoured gins that were produced with synthetic flavours/colouring e.g. caramel is often added to younger whisky to give it that nice aged golden brown, and those that come naturally derived. The colour should be delicate and not too intense unless it is a sloe berry gin whose fruit colour borders on the deepest blue.
Texture – Gins both regular and flavoured are meant to be drunk diluted with ice, soda or good tonic water. However, when produced, many flavoured gins have a certain stickiness closer to that of liqueurs, which are packed full of flavour and intensity. So next time you have a drink, separate your tonic/soda and try a little neat on your tongue.
Gin of different flavours is not new, but after much success in the 1950s went out of fashion. However, as Gin came back in favour, do this the many flavours. Today's key difference is that we welcome what is natural and seek to avoid synthetic and artificially conceived flavours.
At The First Pour, we bring our consumers only the best selection of flavoured gins. Not sure where to begin? Check out a few of our favourite flavoured gin recommendations to get you started:
1. Warner’s Sloe Gin
The award-winning Warner's Sloe Gin is an intensely delicious liquor produced with selected hedgerow sloe berries. Each Autumn, farmers and Gin fans across the UK donate their sloe berries to Warner’s and swap them a few months later for a beautiful Warner’s Sloe Gin.
The starting of any flavoured gin is a base gin, and for Warner’s, this is their Harrington Dry Gin (still very junipy and done in a London Dry style), where macerated sloe berries are infused into the Harrington to create the Warner’s Sloe Gin.
Easily paired with tonic and enjoy it as a cocktail at Atlas Bar in Singapore, one of the top bars in the world who has chosen the Warner’s Sloe Gin for one of their in house signature cocktails.
2. Chase Oak-aged Sloe Gin
Rich and powerful, with a lengthy, lingering finish, sloe berries are carefully macerated to create Chase Sloe Gin. It has a lovely fruity flavour with a tartness that is well balanced. This gin is best served straight up or over ice with a zingy lemon tonic.
3. Warner’s Honeybee Gin
Warner's Honeybee Gin is made with 28 botanicals, including lavender, rose, and honey from their farm's beehives. The honey gin was created in collaboration with the Royal Horticultural Society to safeguard the special roles that bees have in acting as nature’s pollinators, without which we would have no fruits and vegetables.
Honey is sustainably harvested and if you are wondering it is none too sweet, where the taste is really of flowers from the English countryside.
4. Mirabeau’s Dry Rosé Gin
A lovely herbaceous-style dry gin with floral notes and a citrus burst. Mirabeau Gin is a traditional London Dry Gin that has been topped up with Rose wine from Provence no less to create a gin that is both tastings of the French countryside and found with a lovely pale pink colour. The bottle is a work of art too and can be recycled for use as a candlestick or homemade perfume diffuser.
5. Warner’s Rhubarb Gin
Rhubarb the quintessential English vegetable is purple, but when freshly squeezed and mixed with the Warner’s Harrington Dry it becomes the best Rhubarb Gin on the market. Originally using Rhubarb planted by Queen Victoria herself, demand is so great that the Rhubarb must be bought from farmers all across the UK.
6. Adelaide Hills Distillery 78 Degree Sunset 'Pink' Gin
Adelaide Hills Distillery's 78 Degrees Sunset Gin is a premium spirit with an exceptional flavour. The principal is Strawberry Gum (a gum tree found in Australia). Affectionally known by insiders as the Bubble Gum gin, there is a sweet strawberry scent that perfumes the gin. For the perfect sundowner, combine with Mediterranean tonic and strawberries.
7. G’vine Nouaison Cognac Barrel Aged Gin
G’vine was the first gin in the world to be made with cognac grape spirit. The innovative team at Maison Villvert took things one step further to create a gin for the night. Made with cognac grape spirit, distilled into gin and aged in cognac bottles, this gin conveys luxury and sophistication. Pouring from a fashionably dark and medicinal bottle, it makes the perfect elegant negroni.