London No. 1 Original Blue Gin
Posted by Arctic Wolf on May 9, 2014
London No. 1 Original Blue Gin is a product of Gonzalas Byass who are a Spanish wine/cellars company which also produces a variety of distilled spirits including brandy, anisette, botanical vodka and of course gin. Their gin is triple distilled (from English grain in London, England) on a traditional pot still in small batches by Master Distiller, Charles Maxwell. According to the London No. 1 website the gin is distilled with 12 key botanicals which include: Juniper from Croatia; Angelica root and Savory from France; Coriander from Morocco; Cassia bark from China, Liquorice from Turkey, Cinnamon from Ceylon, Almond from Greece; and Lemon peel, Orange peel, Lily root and Bergamot from Italy.
Big Blue Sexy
The product was first test marketed in Spain, and is now being launched in limited quantities internationally. It is bottled at 47 % alcohol by volume ensuring a more concentrated flavour than more traditional distilled spirits which are bottled at 40 % alcohol by volume.
I was given a bottle for review by Woodman Wines and Spirits Inc. who have informed me that this product is now available again in limited quantities in Ontario, Canada. (I have seen it on the shelves here in Alberta as well.)
You may read my review by Clicking on the following excerpt.
Review: London No. 1 Original Blue Gin
I included a classic cocktail recipe, The Pegu Club Cocktail, with this review, as well as a recipe of my own, Big Blue Sexy.
Please enjoy the review and of course my included recipes, Cheers!
4 Responses to “London No. 1 Original Blue Gin”
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propercocktails said
Sounds like a good gin, but I feel like the only reason to make a gin blue is to appease people who open a bottle of Sapphire and are disappointed to discover the gin itself is clear.
Arctic Wolf said
I am going to disagree in part:
I have noticed that other coloured gins which also achieve their colour at least in part from a steeping or infusion process have the same intense ‘perfumed’ quality that the Number One Original Blue Gin has, whereas I have not noticed nearly the intensity of this quality in clear gins. Thus I suspect that if the colour were removed from this gin, the taste and aromatic profile would be different from what the producers wanted. While the process of steeping the gin in gardenia and infusing it with Bergomot leaves an imprint of colour upon the gin it also is probably responsible (at least in part) for the perfumed quality I have described. If the gin were filtered clear or if the Bergomot and Garnia were disteilled rather than infused, this would alter would alter the taste.
I also suspect that the colour achieved naturally was not exactly what the producers wanted (perhaps this natural colouration is undesirable in some way), and so the gin was therefore additionally coloured artificially to achieve a more desirable colour profile.
propercocktails said
Could be, but something like Tanqueray Malacca has a very floral element to it without achieving any color. But maybe I’m too suspicious because it’s blue. If it were green or purple or something, I guess it would seem less gimmicky to me.
Arctic Wolf said
My understanding (which is not always faultless) is that the blue colour was chosen for this gin at least in part because the natural colour imparted by the steeping process gave the spirit a blueish hue. The extra added colour was either to enhance this blueish hue such theat it was more desirable, or to maintain consistency in colour from batch to batch.
(I do hear you though with respect to the link to the Blue Sapphire Gin.)