Hammer & Son Old English Gin 700ml

When buying Gin in the 1700’s and 1800’s you’d be offered a simple choice: English Gin or Holland’s Gin. Hollands Gin was known as Jenever, a 35% ABV juniper based sipping spirit, where English Gin was at a much higher ABV and with many more botanicals. English Gin was branded fancy names as Young Tom and Old Tom or named after the distillery or the distiller such as Plymouth, Warrington and Tanqueray.

At that time England was the largest importer of French Champagne, and since bottles were expensive and gin originally was a “poor mans spirit”, the champagne bottles would be reused and filled with gin for consumers to buy at the gin shops.

Hammer & Son Old English Gin is made from a 1783 recipe, distilling eleven botanicals in the oldest pot still being used in England today. Old English Gin will come in champagne bottles with a natural cork, organic wax and silk print as they did back in 1783. Old English Gin is produced with green power, and the only non-organic waste will be the bottle that should be disposed of for recycling – all to protect the environment.

This way we are reinvigorating how English Gin was made and distributed back then, so to taste a cocktail as it was intended, you need a Gin that hasn’t changed. Old English Gin is how it was: TRULY ORIGINAL

Hammer & Son Old English Gin is perfectly clear in color, no outright evidence of post distillation additions. Definitely looks as if a classic styled gin.

The nose is quite interesting. Juniper forward, but some musky darker notes, wet paper, fallen tree leaves after a rain, hints of angelica and cassia. Quite interesting, and quite evidence that there is something here that may not taste like your usual gins. Despite the colorful descriptors, I don’t think it smells bad or offputting. Those notes, while there, aren’t overwhelming, and while presented on their own, might turn a drinker off. In context though, I think they belie a certain complexity, a depth of character, and they call to mind the notes one might taste in a craft vodka or bright whiskey.

Lots of bright juniper, vivid citrus notes, sweet lemon, orange rind on the palate for Hammer & Son Old English Gin, A soft, almost silky mouthfeel. It feels very thick. The mid body is where some of the earthy complexity comes through: nutmeg, clove, and a hint of a bright floral sweetness towards the end. The finish is long, a bit earthy and indistinct with a touch of heat. The nose doesn’t tell you a whole lot about this flavor, at least not beyond the juniper forward character. Quite nice, and quite complex.