Gin: styles and the botanical basket

Open a bottle of gin and the first thing you meet is a pine forest. Juniper is not a suggestion in this category; it is the legal spine. Everything else, the coriander and citrus and roots, is a conversation held around it. That conversation is where the styles come from.

What gin is

Gin is a flavored spirit. A neutral base, usually distilled from grain to a very high strength, is given its character by juniper berries and a supporting cast of botanicals. The United States standard of identity requires that gin take its main characteristic flavor from juniper and be bottled at no less than 40 percent alcohol by volume. It allows three routes: distilling a mash with the botanicals, redistilling spirit over them, or simply blending neutral spirit with juniper flavoring. Only gin made exclusively by the first two routes may use the words distilled, dry, London or Old Tom on its label.

The European Union draws finer lines. Plain gin is flavored neutral alcohol with juniper predominant, at 37.5 percent or above. Distilled gin requires the botanicals to be redistilled with spirit of at least 96 percent. London gin is the strictest tier: a distilled gin whose flavor comes only from that redistillation, with the distillate coming off at 70 percent or higher, no coloring, and sweetening capped at a tenth of a gram per liter. The word dry may be added to any of these if sugar stays under that threshold.

How it is made

The base spirit arrives first. Most producers buy neutral grain spirit rather than ferment their own, though a few distill from wheat, barley or grapes in house. The botanicals are then extracted in one of two ways. Steeping soaks them in the diluted spirit, sometimes for a day or more, before the still is fired. Vapor infusion suspends them in a basket above the liquid so that rising alcohol vapor pulls their oils through. Many distillers combine both, steeping the roots and barks and vapor-infusing the delicate flowers and peels.

The botanical basket has a recognizable core. Juniper brings pine, pepper and a faint fruit. Coriander seed is the usual second note, mellow and spicy with a citrus top. Angelica root is the binder, earthy and musky, holding the lighter aromas together. Orris root, ground to a powder, fixes the aromatics and adds a violet perfume. Lemon and orange peel supply bright oils. Cassia and cinnamon add warmth, licorice adds body and a soft sweetness, and the rarer additions, cardamom, cubeb and grains of paradise, bring heat and menthol lift. A classic London dry leans on a handful of these; contemporary recipes add many more.

The styles

London dry is a method, not an address. It can be made anywhere that follows the rules above, and most of the world's benchmark gins are built this way: juniper forward, bone dry, citrus and spice in support.

Plymouth is the softer, earthier cousin from the English south coast. It carried protected geographical status in the EU from 2008, and its rounder, less piney profile makes it a natural choice for drinks where gin should blend rather than lead.

Old Tom is the sweetened style that dominated the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Early makers sweetened with licorice because cane sugar was dear; once beet sugar flooded Europe in the 1800s, sugar took over. Improved column-still spirit made drier gin possible, Old Tom faded, and twentieth century survivors were mostly export brands with two to six percent sugar. It has returned, and it belongs in the Martinez and the Tom Collins.

Genever is the Dutch ancestor, built on malt wine, a grain distillate that keeps much of its cereal character. It drinks closer to a light whisky with juniper than to a London dry, and the EU keeps it in its own category at a lower minimum strength.

Contemporary or New Western dry gins, a term coined by the American bartender Ryan Magarian, dial juniper back and push other botanicals forward: cucumber, rose, tea, local herbs. Some sit close to the legal edge of what gin can be, which is part of the fun and part of the risk.

In cocktails

Gin is the great mixer of the spirits shelf because its botanicals already behave like a recipe. In the Martini a London dry carries dry vermouth without being swallowed by it; a Plymouth makes a softer, more aromatic version. The Negroni needs juniper with enough backbone to hold the line against Campari and sweet vermouth, so a classic London dry is the safe choice. The French 75 pairs gin's citrus oils with lemon and sparkling wine, and the gin should be clean rather than elaborate. The Singapore Sling asks gin to anchor a long list of fruit and liqueur, where a medium-weight London dry does the job. Old Tom is the answer when a recipe predates 1900 and tastes harsh with a dry gin.

Buying by style

Think about the drink before the bottle. For stirred, spirit-forward work, choose a juniper-led London dry at 43 to 47 percent; the extra strength survives dilution. For long drinks and tonic, a Plymouth or a citrus-leaning contemporary gin reads brighter. Keep one Old Tom for historical recipes and one genever if you enjoy the malty, older register. Navy strength bottlings, around 57 percent, are for recipes that need the gin to cut through heavy modifiers. Price tracks botanicals and marketing more than quality; a well-made standard London dry outperforms many ornate newcomers in a Martini.

Folklore and fact

The story that Franciscus Sylvius, a professor of medicine at Leiden, invented gin in the 1650s appears in countless bar books. Juniper spirit was on sale in Leiden by 1595, nearly two decades before he was born and probably earlier, and Difford's history points to a different Sylvius, a sixteenth century Leiden professor, as the likelier figure behind the legend. The honest version is that nobody invented gin; juniper distillates evolved out of apothecary practice. The other durable myth is that London dry must come from London. It never has.

Sources

• 27 CFR 5.144, Gin, the US TTB standard of identity (Cornell LII).
• Regulation (EU) 2019/787, Annex I, categories 19 to 22 (EUR-Lex).
• Difford's Guide, "Gin styles", "Old Tom gin", "Gin botanicals", and "History of gin 1572 to early 1600s".
• Difford's Guide, "Plymouth Gin Navy Strength" (navy strength at 57 percent).