School of Wine & Spirits
Gin
204 reviews
Tarquin's Cornish Pastis Gin
Tarquin's
Southwestern Distillery's lesser-known expression channels the raw, mineral spirit of the Cornish coast with remarkable conviction. Where many gins chase florals or tropical botanicals, this bottling digs into the earth and stone beneath, making it a natural companion to the volcanic wines and peated whiskeys in this issue's lineup. It's a gin that tastes like terroir — unapologetically austere, deeply satisfying, and built on bedrock.
Four Pillars Olive Leaf Gin
Four Pillars
Four Pillars Olive Leaf Gin demonstrates how a single unconventional botanical can reframe an entire spirit. The olive leaf doesn't overwhelm — it provides a savory counterweight to the bright citrus and juniper, making this gin exceptionally food-friendly. A Martini with this gin and a briny olive is a revelation.
Conniption Navy Strength Gin
Conniption
Durham Distillery's navy strength offering takes the clean, contemporary profile of the original Conniption and amplifies it to dramatic effect. The higher proof doesn't bully — it illuminates, making this an exceptional gin for cocktails that need backbone without losing botanical nuance.
St. George Dry Rye Reposado Gin
St. George Spirits
St. George's barrel-aged rye gin sits at the crossroads of whiskey and gin, using fire twice — once to dry-roast botanicals, once through barrel maturation. The result is a gin with structure and warmth that holds up beautifully in stirred cocktails where a London Dry would feel thin. A bridge bottle for whiskey lovers exploring gin.
Beefeater Burrough's Reserve Oak Rested Gin
Beefeater
Master Distiller Desmond Payne's vision of what happens when the spirit meets the cask is brought to vivid life in Burrough's Reserve Oak Rested. Rested in hand-selected Jean de Lillet oak casks — previously used to age the storied French aperitif — this gin embodies the issue's theme at its most literal: the barrel's inner skin imparts golden color, vanilla richness, and a gentle tannic framework without ever eclipsing the juniper-forward London Dry character. It occupies a fascinating middle ground between gin and aged spirit, rewarding both neat sipping and barrel-aged cocktails.
Bols Genever Barrel Aged 18 Month
Bols
A masterclass in patience applied to the gin family tree. Where most gins celebrate the instant brightness of distillation, Bols Barrel Aged 18 Month embraces the slow alchemy of oak and time. The result is a spirit that bridges the worlds of aged whiskey and botanical distillate — furnace-forged grain spirit tempered into something deeply contemplative. Perfectly aligned with "The Furnace of Patience," this genever proves that even the juniper berry bows to time's authority.
Tanqueray Flor de Sevilla Gin
Tanqueray
Tanqueray Flor de Sevilla takes the classic London dry structure and overlays it with actual Seville orange botanicals, creating a gin that bridges tradition and accessibility. The bitterness of the orange is key — this is not a sweetened citrus gin but a genuine botanical expression. A versatile bottle for cocktails and a solid G&T anchor.
Conniption American Dry Gin
Durham Distillery
Durham Distillery's Conniption American Dry is a masterclass in restraint. By splitting its botanical bill between two distillation methods—heat-based and vacuum—it preserves each ingredient's essential character without compromise. The result is a gin that feels structurally honest: juniper-forward, quietly complex, and utterly transparent. In an era of gins dressed in lavender and tropical fruit, Conniption argues that the marrow of the spirit is decoration enough. Exceptional value at its price point.
Neversink Spirits Gin
Neversink Spirits
Neversink Spirits Gin is the product of mulish dedication to terroir-driven distilling in the Hudson Valley. Using a combination of local botanicals and classic gin architecture, this small-batch gin reflects the obstinate vision of its makers: no shortcuts, no trend-chasing, just relentless focus on balance and character. In an issue celebrating stubbornness made liquid, Neversink embodies the quiet resolve of craft — a gin that earns its place on the shelf through sheer tenacity of flavor.
Hernö High Coast Terroir Gin 2021 Edition
Hernö
Hernö's Terroir series is the ultimate expression of climate woven into spirit. The 2021 Edition captures the unique conditions of Sweden's High Coast — a UNESCO World Heritage site still rebounding from glacial compression — where extreme seasonal light variation and subarctic maritime air produce botanicals found nowhere else. This is gin as geography, distilled proof that latitude, weather, and soil are as much ingredients as juniper and water.
Monkey 47 Distiller's Cut 2022
Monkey 47
Each year's Distiller's Cut adds a secret botanical to the standard 47, and the 2022 edition brings a subtle aromatic shift that rewards comparison with the classic expression. The base architecture — 47 botanicals in precise harmony — remains one of gin's great achievements. This is precision distilling at its most expressive.
Bols Genever Barrel Aged 2 Year
Bols
This is gin that learned to sit still. Where most gins are built for immediacy — bright, loud, now — Bols Barrel Aged Genever asks you to slow down. Two years in French limousin oak have woven the juniper and malt into something that belongs alongside aged whisky and fine brandy. In an issue devoted to patience made tangible, this is the amber between breaths: the proof that waiting, simply waiting, can turn grain and juniper into gold. Sip it neat, slightly below room temperature, and give it the unhurried attention it gave the wood.
Gin de Mahón Xoriguer
Xoriguer
In an issue celebrating rhythm and the clockwork of seasons, Xoriguer is the gin that answers the call. Made from wine-based spirit distilled in copper pot stills over juniper harvested from the very hills surrounding Mahón, it is a spirit inseparable from its place and its calendar. The juniper harvest, the grape harvest, the Mediterranean seasons — all audible in the glass. It is beautifully uncomplicated, profoundly rooted, and unlike any London Dry you've ever tasted. A timeless rhythm bottled on a tiny island.
Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin Ceramic Bottle
Drumshanbo
Drumshanbo's Ceramic Bottle expression is the same celebrated liquid — slow-distilled with oriental botanicals including gunpowder tea, star anise, and meadowsweet — but housed in a striking hand-glazed blue ceramic vessel that feels like holding a flask of alchemical mercury. The gin itself is a study in transformation: each sip shape-shifts between bright citrus and deep spice, never settling, always quicksilver. It's craft with restless, mercurial energy, perfectly at home among this issue's boundary-pushing selections.
Spring44 Mountain Gin
Spring44
Spring44 Mountain Gin is a study in restraint and terroir. Where many American gins reach for citrus fireworks or botanical excess, this Colorado-made spirit draws its character from what lies beneath: root botanicals, mineral-rich spring water sourced at 9,000 feet, and a patient distillation philosophy. It embodies the issue's theme perfectly — depth before display, substance before spectacle. A gin that rewards the patient sipper and makes a profoundly grounded Martini.
Bluecoat American Dry Gin
Bluecoat
Philadelphia Distilling's Bluecoat is a gin that holds its ground — a citrus-forward American dry that never loses its juniper compass. In a lineup themed around anchoring before upheaval, this bottle embodies quiet American resolve: nothing flashy, nothing fragile, just honest botanicals distilled with purpose. It's the kind of gin that steadies a cocktail the way a deep keel steadies a hull. At under thirty dollars, it's a dependable cornerstone for any spirits shelf.
Tarquin's Cornish Dry Gin Navy Strength
Tarquin's
Tarquin Leadbetter built his distillery in a barn on the windswept Cornish coast, and the navy strength bottling carries that same unflinching character. The higher proof doesn't bludgeon — it reveals. Every botanical gets louder, and the structure holds beautifully in cocktails where lesser gins would disappear.
Aria Portland Dry Gin
Aria Gin
Aria Portland Dry Gin is a masterclass in first impressions. Bull Run Distilling crafts a gin that welcomes rather than overwhelms — the angle of entry is gentle yet confident, revealing layer after layer of carefully calibrated botanicals. It's the kind of bottle that converts gin skeptics and satisfies gin devotees in the same pour. In a lineup themed around 'First Contact Matters,' Aria demonstrates that the Pacific Northwest approach to gin — restrained, precise, and deeply connected to place — can be as compelling as any Old World classic. An outstanding gateway gin with genuine depth.
Barr Hill Tom Cat Gin
Caledonia Spirits
Tom Cat is the answer to anyone who thinks gin can't carry weight. By aging their honey-forward base spirit in new charred oak, Caledonia Spirits has created something that lives in the liminal space between gin and whiskey — possessing the depth and gravity of the latter while retaining the botanical soul of the former. The raw honey, sourced from northern Vermont apiaries, doesn't simply sweeten; it adds layers of floral complexity that the barrel aging then deepens and darkens. This is sweetness as architecture, not decoration. A gin that proves depth and sugar are entirely different currencies.
Opihr Oriental Spiced London Dry Gin
Opihr
Opihr channels the ancient spice routes into a London Dry framework with remarkable coherence. The pepper-forward warmth and exotic botanical blend make it a natural fit for the 'Warmth Before Silence' theme — it glows with lingering spice heat that fades into a contemplative, quiet finish. An accessible yet genuinely distinctive gin that rewards slow sipping as much as mixing.
Cape Fynbos Gin
Cape Fynbos
Cape Fynbos is a stunning argument for terroir-driven gin. The fynbos biome — a UNESCO-recognized biodiversity hotspot found only in the Western Cape — provides botanicals that simply cannot be replicated elsewhere on Earth. The result is a gin that tastes unmistakably of its latitude: warm-climate florals, sun-baked herbs, and Indian Ocean salinity, all balanced against a confident juniper core. A perfect fit for our 'Climate Shapes the Glass' theme, proving that gin's botanical palette is ultimately a map of where it's made.
Koval Barreled Gin
Koval
Koval Barreled Gin is the embodiment of 'the whisper before thunder' — a gin that has absorbed the quiet intensity of charred American oak without losing its botanical soul. Where many barrel-aged gins lean too heavily into whiskey territory, Koval keeps juniper at the helm while letting wood smoke and spice rumble beneath the surface. A contemplative sipper that rewards patience.
Corsair Steampunk Gin
Corsair Distillery
A genre-bending American gin that channels craft-brewing sensibilities into the still — grounded, unconventional, and unmistakably alive with current.
Sacred Rosehip Cup
Sacred Spirits
A serious, terroir-driven answer to mass-market aperitivi — vivid, botanical, and unmistakably British in its restraint.