The Botanist Islay Dry Gin is created at the Bruichladdich distillery. This superb Islay gin was distilled in the 'ugly betty' still described as "an oversized upside-down dustbin made of copper" by Tom Morton. It has perhaps the best looking packaging we've ever seen for a gin. It's not all style and no substance either. Botanist is a world-class gin set at a proper ABV.
A huge 31 botanicals go into The Botanist, 22 of which are foraged and native to Islay. The full list of botanicals is as follows: angelica root, apple mint, birch leaves, bog myrtle leaves, cassia bark, chamomile, cinnamon bark, coriander seed, creeping thistle flowers, elder flowers, gorse flowers, heather flowers, hawthorn flowers, juniper berries, lady's bedstraw flowers, lemon balm, lemon peel, liquorice root, meadow sweet, orange peel, oris root, peppermint leaves, mugwort leaves, red clover flowers, tansy, thyme leaves, water mint leaves, white clover, wood sage leaves. Phew!
Enough botanicals to make us wish we had five noses. Big notes of citrus, delicate menthol and flowers everywhere!
Cool at first. It quickly mellows out, warmth growing with citrus keeping it fresh throughout.
Long, with a good spice.
Islay isn't just about the whisky anymore. The Botanist Gin is top-notch.
We have just received a bottle of The Botanist 22 Gin through the courtesy of Lufhansa Worldshop. We love gin but it was a big disappointment. It tastes anything except good gin. Sorry to tell you. Roland Berra, Nice, France
Have just received a bottle of the Botanist Islay Dry Gin to give as a birthday present, the help and service from the team was first class, thank you.
This gin is wonderful and very smooth. All others I have tried Bombay & Tanqueray have too much of a bite compared with this that is totally delightful
I'm a veteran gin man, and long ago settled on Plymouth as the world's state of the art maker of this widely, much abused spirit. By state of the art, I mean a pronounced (but not too pronounced) presence of juniper (else, why is it "gin?"), a slight bite in the first taste, expanding to a complex (but not too complex) merger of botanicals and a pleasing fragrance (but not too fragrant), ending in a smooth, long finish that produces a Proustian memory of that first, really good martini. Plymouth has all that without going too far - or not far enough - in any one direction. It's what gin should taste like. With new premium, "hand-crafted" gins coming at us like confetti, it's getting hard to separate the lasting innovators from the pretenders. Botanist Islay Dry Gin is, I have to say, just about perfect. Lacking that gin lover's bite you find so unmistakably in Plymouth, it's otherwise a marvel of balance. complexity and some sort of mysterious freshness that conjures up the feeling of lying face down and sipping from the clearest, natural brook of pure . . . gin. A miracle product.
A leader amongst the rest.
