School of Wine & Spirits
Gin
251 reviews
Gray Whale Gin
Gray Whale
Gray Whale Gin embodies California's coastal terroir in a bottle, weaving together six botanicals foraged and sourced along the gray whale migration path from Alaska to Baja. It's a gin that quietly celebrates the circular journey of nature — each sip traces a migratory orbit from forest to sea. Beautifully balanced for sipping neat or elevating a classic cocktail.
Greenhook Ginsmiths Old Tom Gin
Greenhook Ginsmiths
Greenhook Ginsmiths Old Tom is a masterclass in the style — richly botanical yet balanced, with barrel influence that serves as a hinge between classic gin brightness and whiskey-like depth. It perfectly embodies the spirit of seasonal transition, offering both the lightness of summer botanicals and the warmth of autumn's arrival. A superb sipper and an elevated cocktail foundation.
Italicus Rosolio di Bergamotto
Italicus
Italicus Rosolio di Bergamotto is a masterclass in how bitterness, properly handled, becomes beauty—making it the ideal gin-adjacent spirit for this issue's theme. Its bergamot-driven botanical profile pairs naturally with Ardbeg's phenolic intensity and Radikon's amber-skinned whites, forming a through-line of productive discomfort. A modern revival of an ancient Italian aperitivo tradition, it rewards contemplation neat and transforms any spritz into something transcendent.
Sipsmith London Cup
Sipsmith
Sipsmith London Cup is a love letter to the English tradition of summer cups — a style of drink whose origins hide behind garden walls and afternoon rituals. It rewards those who look past the modest proof to discover genuine botanical complexity, making it a perfect fit for the theme of hidden sources revealed. An effortless warm-weather sipper that punches well above its weight.
Ableforth's Bathtub Gin Old Tom
Ableforth's
Ableforth's Bathtub Old Tom captures the liminal warmth of dusk—sweeter and more meditative than its London Dry sibling, yet never cloying. Its cold-compounded botanical infusion method gives it a rounded, layered character that rewards slow sipping. A gin that belongs to the golden hour.
Liberator Gin
Valentine Distilling
Valentine's Liberator is a beautifully structured American gin that rewards patience—its earthy, root-driven botanicals truly surface only after the bright juniper and citrus settle. It fits squarely into the 'buried flavors surfacing' theme, revealing hidden complexity with every sip. An excellent and underappreciated craft gin at a fair price point.
Uncle Val's Restorative Gin
Uncle Val's
Uncle Val's Restorative Gin is a promise made good on its label — a genuinely soothing, thoughtfully composed spirit that honors its Italian-American family roots with Mediterranean-inspired botanicals. It's juniper-forward enough for purists yet distinctive enough to stand apart, delivering on its covenant of craft with every sip.
Genius Gin Original
Genius Gin
Genius Gin Original is a masterclass in angular clarity — every botanical arrives at a distinct point and angle, creating a gin that feels both structured and expressive. It's an ideal canvas for cocktails that demand precision, yet rewards contemplative sipping where each facet of its geometry can be appreciated.
Bimini Barrel Aged Gin
Bimini
Bimini Barrel Aged Gin is a masterclass in how charred wood can redraw a gin's identity without erasing it. The juniper spine remains intact even as the barrel adds layers of caramel and smoke, making it a compelling bridge between the worlds of aged spirits and botanical distillation. For the theme of burned lines and living maps, this bottle charts the exact territory where fire transforms spirit into something navigable and new.
Dorothy Parker Gin
New York Distilling Company
Named for the famously sharp-witted writer who found clarity through chaos, Dorothy Parker Gin lives up to its namesake with a botanically complex yet beautifully resolved spirit. The interplay of floral, citrus, and spice achieves an equilibrium that feels inevitable rather than forced. An outstanding American gin that rewards attention.
Collective Arts Artisanal Dry Gin
Collective Arts
Collective Arts Artisanal Dry Gin brings a boldly spiced, peppery character that slots perfectly into a lineup exploring degrees of flame and smoke. Its assertive juniper-forward profile and warming cassia-pepper backbone make it an excellent sipping gin or a compelling base for cocktails that call for backbone. A confident, well-crafted Canadian gin that punches well above its price point.
Ransom Dry Gin
Ransom
Ransom Dry Gin is Tad Seestedt's purist counterpart to his celebrated Old Tom — a gin built on classical London Dry architecture but rendered with an artisan's hand and Pacific Northwest grain. It rewards patience and contemplation, each sip revealing another layer of carefully integrated botanical work. A gin whose flavor is genuinely built to last, sip after sip.
Plymouth Gin Navy Strength
Plymouth
Plymouth's navy strength is a masterclass in proportional scaling — every botanical that works at 41.2% works harder here without distortion. The Dartmoor water's soft mineral profile keeps the 57% from becoming aggressive. Essential for a proper gimlet and a reminder that Plymouth's geographic appellation is more than marketing.
Rutte Dry Gin
Rutte
Rutte Dry Gin is a testament to quiet, patient craft — a recipe refined across generations at one of the Netherlands' oldest distilleries, where fermentation and distillation traditions stretch back to 1872. Its elegant balance of juniper, celery, and gentle spice makes it a versatile and deeply satisfying gin that rewards contemplation as much as mixing.
Procera Blue Dot Gin
Procera
Procera's Blue Dot showcases the extraordinary depth of wild-harvested Kenyan juniper, delivering a gin of unusual darkness and gravitas. Where the Red Dot expression leans tropical and bright, the Blue Dot pulls toward shadow and complexity — resinous, layered, and quietly powerful. It's a gin that rewards slow contemplation, perfectly suited to that liminal moment when daylight surrenders to dusk.
Terroir Gin
St. George Spirits
St. George Terroir Gin is the liquid embodiment of 'Earthbound Liquid Truths.' Master distiller Lance Winters wild-harvests Douglas fir, bay laurel, and coastal sage from the hillsides surrounding the distillery, capturing a specific place in a bottle. This isn't gin that merely uses botanicals — it channels geography. Each sip is a meditation on where things grow, the soil they grow in, and what the land offers when you listen carefully. Among American gins, it remains a singular, uncompromising statement of place.
Conniption Kinship Gin
Conniption
Durham Distillery uses both vacuum distillation and traditional copper pot methods to capture delicate botanicals alongside bolder ones, resulting in a gin that feels layered yet effortless. Kinship sits between their Navy Strength and American Dry expressions, offering a compelling middle ground that works beautifully in cocktails or over ice.
Vikre Boreal Spruce Gin
Vikre Distillery
Vikre's Boreal Spruce Gin is a spirit that embodies the liminal space between smoke and stillness. Distilled with hand-foraged spruce tips from Minnesota's North Shore, it channels the boreal landscape with striking authenticity. Where many gins chase floral elegance, this one leans into the austere beauty of the evergreen forest — resinous, grounding, and quietly powerful. It's the perfect gin for the 'Embers Before Clarity' theme: a spirit that begins in the haze of woodsmoke and resolves into something piercingly clean and true.
Inverroche Amber Gin
Inverroche
Inverroche Amber is a gin that rewards patience in the glass—a spirit built on the slow, abundant harvest of wild South African fynbos botanicals gathered by hand from the biodiversity hotspot surrounding Still Bay. Its amber hue and layered complexity come from a period of rest that deepens and unifies the botanical profile. In a lineup celebrating abundance earned slowly, this bottle embodies the idea that the richest flavors come from landscapes and traditions that refuse to be rushed.
Bols Genever
Bols
The original juniper spirit that predates London Dry by centuries, Bols Genever is a living link to the 1820 recipe that birthed an entire category. Its malt-driven body and restrained botanical profile make it both a history lesson and a thoroughly modern pleasure—proof that the roots of gin hold fast in Dutch soil.
Citadelle Gin No Mistake Old Tom
Citadelle
Citadelle's Old Tom expression is a masterclass in twilight elegance—sweetened just enough to soften juniper's sharper edges into something contemplative and golden. The honey-forward profile and gentle spice create a gin that bridges day and night, making it an ideal companion for dusky sipping or a refined cocktail. A bottle that rewards patience and quiet moments.
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.