Merser rum: reviving a London tradition

To Temple, by the river, for the launch of a new rum. It’s the brainchild of Hayman’s, whom you probably know as a gin distiller. Hayman’s present themselves as a family firm (I chatted to both Miranda and James Hayman, fifth generation in the business), though in fact Hayman’s gin only dates back to the 1980s. Miranda’s and James’s father Christopher, head honcho, is the son of Marjorie Burrough, of the Burroughs family behind Beefeater Gin, a family gin brand that dates back to 1863.

This sense of history is actually what lies behind the new product. Apparently back in the day the Thames was lined with rum blending houses, importing source rums from around the Caribbean and practising the art of skilful blending to create a perfect balanced product. Industrialisation and cost-cutting later drove this trade elsewhere, and Hayman’s are hoping to bring the old skills back to life.

The whole brand, called Charles Merser & Co., is steeped in this olde worlde image. The launch took place in a four-storey Georgian merchant’s house a couple of streets off the Strand, which they have named At the Sign of the Post and Hound. Charles Merser is actually a family ancestor, James tells me, but they are not reviving an old rum-blending business—they simply picked his name, not least because it has a City-of-London mercantile sort of ring to it. The Post and Hound name is a reference to the fact that in the old days pubs were identified by the imagery on their signs, rather than a written name, because most of their clientele couldn’t read. (The post refers to the wooden posts that Thames barges full of rum barrels would tie up at; the dog is a greyhound, apparently a London connection.) I asked if this meant their plan was to turn the building into a rum bar, which seems the obvious way to go, but apparently that sort of decision is a long way off. For now the high narrow building just seems to be a visitor’s centre.

At the launch the ground floor had shelves of bottles, plus some branded enamelled mugs, in one of which I was served a simple hot rum punch, essentially rum, hot water, sugar and spices (cloves and, I think, star anise). I think this room is intended as a shop front. Up on the first floor was a tasting room where we sampled the rum and on the top floor was a bar where vintage cocktails were being dispensed. Down in the cellar was their blending room. The idea is that the blending really will take place here, although it is no longer permissible to store barrels of rum in a London town house, for fire safety reasons, so all the storage will go on at the Hayman’s distillery plant in Balham. At the time of my visit there were only some empty barrels plus some pieces of barrel to show how they are made.

It was in this room that I learned a bit about how the new rum was concocted. It is made from three existing blends, in turn composed of some ten source spirits. The three component blends are imported, blended here then left in barrels for a number of months. Whereas the aged rums in the blend have matured in tropical conditions, which accelerates the interaction with the wood, the final ageing takes place in the temperate British climate, using barrels already used first for bourbon and then for whisky, so there is far less flavour imparted from this process. It is more about allowing the blend of blends to settle and marry. Given that so many different rums go into the mix, I asked if it was expected that as time went by different source spirits would be used, with the blending process used to adjust the recipe to ensure a consistent final flavour was maintained, and this does indeed seem to be the plan. Up in the top-floor bar there were rows of the source rums on display (not for tasting!), ranging in colour from completely colourless to dark brown.

Source rums for blending

The product we were tasting was to be their signature “Double Barrel” blend, though it is envisaged that other products may join the stable, such as limited edition blends. The bottle is striking, with a dimpled surface. I’m not quite sure what this is meant to suggest—to me it looked a little like the straw or wicker protective jacket you sometimes see on a glass carboy used to transport wine or spirits, but I was given no encouragement that this is in fact the intention. The three component blends are: 19% (A) a mix of 3-year-old Barbadian rum, 3-year-old Dominican rum and unaged Jamaican rum; 47% (B) a mix of 8-year-old Barbadian rum, 8-year-old Dominican rum and 6-year-old Panamanian rum; and 34% (C) a mix of 5-year-old Barbadian rum, 8-year-old Dominican rum, 3-year-old Guatemalan rum and unaged Jamaican rum. Blend A is said to add a fresh pine-like element, blend B the warming, rich, dark-sugar notes and blend C bright tropical fruit and toasty oak.

On the nose there are hints of the pungent Jamaican pot-still character (which pokes you in the eye when you open a bottle or Wray & Nephew), but these are well controlled within a soft and smooth aroma, with distinct notes of pineapple and mango, a bit of banana, plus caramel and for me a sweet sherry aroma. On the palate it is smooth and subtle, fruity and chocolatey. It is very easy to drink neat, elegant and refined. It’s more like an old-school butler than a hipster flairtender. It doesn’t scream one particular flavour, but dignifiedly suggests one nuance after another with a discreet cough. Add a little water and the chocolate and pineapple seem to come out more on the nose, and for the first time I notice the wood, while the palate takes on a creamy quality.

At £38 a bottle the Double Barrel is not cheap, but at the same time it seems good value to me. My immediate impression is that this is not a rum you would smother with mixer, but Hayman’s are keen to showcase some cocktails with it. The Hot Spiced Rum that I was served when I arrived was a bit sweet for me—I found myself wanting to add a squeeze of lemon juice. Up in the top floor bar I got to try a Polo, two parts rum, one part orange juice and one part lemon juice. It’s nice enough and you are aware of the rum, but having recently sampled it neat I now find myself wishing I could taste more of it in the mix.

A row of Palmettos being rustled up

I’m keen to try the Palmetto, combining rum with red vermouth and a dash of orange bitters. It’s nice, but again I instinctively feel there should be a bit more of an emphasis on the rum. The next day, at home, I make my own. I can see that the recipe in the booklet handed out at the launch gives equal parts rum and vermouth: by analogy with a Manhattan or a Rob Roy, this is a bit vermouth-heavy, so I try one that uses two parts rum to one part Antica Formula red vermouth, plus a couple of dashes of Angostura bitters. It’s bloody fantastic, with lots of toasty caramel flavour hitting you up front and a Christmasy cinnamon flavour (I think the Angostura is partly responsible for this).

Palmetto
50ml Merser Double Barrel
50ml or 25ml red vermouth
Dash of orange (or Angostura) bitters
Stir over ice

Another cocktail that catches my eye in the booklet is the Flapper, made with rum and dry white vermouth, plus a dash of Angostura. The stated proportions are 1:1 again, and again I am cautious about overwhelming the rum, but in fact in this mix the rum holds its own easily. In fact at equal parts the vermouth is hard to pin down, yet clearly affects the overall flavour: I’m using Belsazar Dry and it seems to add a saline finish, creating a pronounced note of salted caramel. It’s a good, subtle, complex drink. I also try making a Small Dinger, a recipe I found in Bar Florida Cocktails (1935) which no one else seems to have heard of or make, but despite the unlikely wheeze of combining rum and gin, I think it really works. Again it performs well with Double Barrel, with the rum showing its character and cozying up comfortably with the gin in the way that it mysteriously does in this cocktail.

Flapper
50ml Merser Double Barrel
50ml dry white vermouth
Two dashes of Angostura
Stir over ice and garnish with a maraschino cherry and a slice of orange (though I drink mine straight up with a lemon peel garnish)*

As you can tell, I’m much taken by Merser Double Barrel. It’s complex but approachable, easy to drink on its own and working well in certain classic style cocktails where it retains its character. In longer drinks I think it gets a bit lost, but there are plenty of short drinks to experiment with, until you suddenly find you’ve reached the end of the bottle…

*I take a fairly dim view of garnishes in general—sometimes their big fresh flavours can ride roughshod over subtleties of the cocktail ingredients; with some Martinis I regularly put a bit of lemon peel in then instantly regret it, as the vigorous rind oils steamroller the gin’s aromas. And when gin brands recommend you garnish their G&T with a kumquat, I find myself thinking, “So why didn’t you just put more kumquat in the botanical mix?” (Though I concede that some things taste quite different fresh from the way they do when infused then redistilled.) But in this case the lemon rind really complements the cocktail.

Group test: 10 Old Tom gins compared

Some of the Old Tom gins we tasted, including a couple of homemade recreations

Many of us can’t help but be fascinated by Old Tom. What we know is that it is an older form of gin than the “London Dry Gin” style that most of us probably consider “normal” and which took over from about 1940. Cocktail books from the 1920s and 1930s will sometimes specify Old Tom gin as opposed to London gin or Plymouth gin, or indeed Holland(s) gin (i.e. genever).

But what did it taste like? In his cocktail book of 1930 “Jimmy” (“late of Ciro’s”) explains “the difference between Dry and Old Tom Gin is the same as between Dry and Sweet Ginger Ale, that is to say one is bitter and one is sweet. Plymouth Gin is half way between the two.” Mind you, Jimmy also says that grenadine is made from raspberries. (Who knows, perhaps it was then…)

A number of manufacturers are increasingly releasing Old Tom style gins, but there is plenty of dispute over what these should taste like. Some are simply sweetened with sugar, while Christian Jensen insists that this would have been too expensive at the time and that any perceived sweetness would have come from the botanical mix. (Others have argued that landlords may have sweetened gin on the premises, perhaps to ameliorate poor quality gin, and that it was therefore unlikely that the gin would have been sweetened by the manufacturer.) David Wondrich is of the opinion that Old Tom is a general term for something that would have evolved and diverged, fundamentally driven by the fact that before the introduction of the column still, capable of producing very pure “neutral” spirit, the base alcohol for early gins would have been crude and distinctly flavoured—indeed much of the botanical flavouring might have been there simply to try and make the spirit more palatable, as might any sweetening or deliberate ageing in wood (something which lies at the heart of whisky making). But the column still signalled a paradigm shift: masking of the base spirit flavour became unnecessary, botanicals could be used simply to add a desired flavour profile and gins became leaner. Genever, meanwhile, remained popular in the Netherlands, revelling in the malty taste of the “impurities” of the pot still alcohol itself.

Kamil looking pale after ten Old Toms

With the interests of the gin-drinking public always our prime concern, the Institute decided to round up all the modern Old Tom gins we could find—ten in total—and have a comparative tasting, both neat and in a classic cocktails. This wouldn’t really help prove what Old Tom did or should taste like: it was more about assessing what is on offer now. Joining us at Graphic was Desmond Payne, Master Distiller at Beefeater, plus Adam and Kamil from the bar. This is what we found (the marks out of ten are my own):

1. Both’s Old Tom Gin (47% ABV) Made in Germany, this spirit is intended as a reproduction of nineteenth-century Old Tom and sports a rather disturbing “flock” label featuring a cat. (One explanation for the name “Old Tom” comes from the story of Dudley Bradstreet, an exciseman who actually sold gin on the sly. On the outside wall of his house was a cat figure; the customer would put money in the cat’s mouth, at which gin was dispensed through a tube between the cat’s paws.) The nose is strongly of caraway and orange. That’s pretty much it, with the palate basically the same, with a middling sweetness. I rather like it, but then I like Akvavit. 8/10.

2. The Wondrich Method Wondrich’s own solution for recreating the taste of Old Tom is to blend modern gin with sugar and whisky. DBS made this sample using the roughest gin he could find, Richmond Gin. I can see the logic, but you’re unlikely to make a very nice concoction this way! This sample has a nose of orange and a bit of red berry; it’s a slightly dusty smell and rather synthetic like a perfumed hand-wipe. The taste is overwhelmingly sweet, again a bit berryish, and reminiscent of barley sugars. Not as noticeably malty as I would have expected, but I guess it depends on the proportions you use—DBS didn’t reveal his precise recipe. 3/10

3. Ransom Old Tom Gin (44% ABV) Made in Oregon—in consultation with Wondrich—this recreation goes down a very woody route, ageing the gin for 3–6 months in pinot noir barrels. Malted barley is used to give a whiskyish hint, combined with botanicals (juniper, orange peel, lemon peel, coriander seed, angelica root and cardamom) infused in corn spirit. The finished gin is a startling colour, looking more like whisky. The nose is strong and astringent, with heavy juniper grappling with orange and an underlying resinous hint like coal tar. Compared to the other samples this one was surprising also in that it was quite dry and austere, driven by pencil-lead juniper. 5/10

4. Secret Treasures Old Tom Style Gin, 2007 (40% ABV) Another German offering, part of Haromex’s Secret Treasures Collection, this sample was made in 2007. The nose is quite balanced between juniper, citrus, fennel and something slightly soapy, then finishing on vanilla and darker notes. There are interesting hints of cucumber skin and mushroom too. The palate is, like Ransom, surprisingly dry and, to me, disappointingly simplistic after that promising nose. Predominantly juniper/pine notes. 4/10

5. Wondrich Method (Oaked) Another batch cooked up by DBS following David Wondrich’s suggestion of adding whisky and sugar to London gin, but this time “oak aged” using whisky barrel wood chips in the bottle for 24 hours. As before this offering probably suffers from the poor quality of the base gin but the wood has smoothed it a bit. The nose is predominantly orange with a distinct butter undertow. The palate is still mostly about barley sugar; the oaking is subtle after only 24 hours but certainly not out of place, and adds a piney, resinous note. 3/10

6. Jensen’s Old Tom Gin (43% ABV) The nose has a soft, vegetal complexity, like ratatouille—sweet pepper and fennel, with darker, toasty wood notes, plus orange, lime and a sugary smell. This carries on to the palate but here there is also an odd character like the glue on envelopes, a sort of cellulose sweetness (if you’ve ever made the mistake of trying to use a kitchen paper towel as a makeshift filter for food or coffee you’ll know what I mean). There is a “thickness” to this gin, as if it were heavily sugared, even though Jensen’s principle is that it is the botanical mix that creates the sweetness rather than sugar. Having said that, it does not come across as particularly sweet. This gin is apparently based on a recipe from the 1840s. 6/10

7. Gin Xorigeur (38% ABV) An antediluvian curio, made on Menorca in the town of Mahon, where it was introduced by the British in the eighteenth century, and allegedly little changed since then. It is made from grape spirit, vapour-infused with the botanicals in a flavour box rather than macerating in the spirit, and aged in American oak barrels before bottling. Oddly, instead of producing a high ABV distillate which is then diluted for bottling, the liquid added to the still is actually a blend of spirit, wine and water, and what emerges is at bottling strength of 38%. In addition to juniper, citrus and fennel, it has a similar sawmill nose to Ransom, plus celery, something toasty, a sour spicy note and something akin to the inside of a rubber glove. The palate is dry, vinous and juniper-led, with celery and sweet pepper. It is perfumed and spiritous, rather than full-bodied (possibly because the botanicals are not macerated), finishing on juniper again. Desmond was clearly quite struck by this one and felt it probably came closest to historical Old Tom. 6/10

8. The Dorchester Old Tom, 2007 (40% ABV) Only available at the Dorchester Hotel, for whom it is made by William Grant (who also make Hendrick’s) so their barmen can make classic cocktails that call for Old Tom. The nose is big: lots of orange and (perhaps unsurprisingly, given the Hendrick’s connection) masses of rose, plus woody spice—cinnamon, or perhaps sandalwood or even camphor wood. The palate is heavy and seductive with any perceived sweetness coming from rose. Add water and an aroma of tonic water emerges, presumably from citrus notes coming out. 8.5/10

9. Hayman’s Old Tom Gin (40% ABV) Made allegedly to an ancestral recipe of James Borough, ancestor of Christopher Hayman, the current Master Distiller. The nose is strongly of orange, almost like curaçao, plus juniper and a little chocolate. The palate, to me, is rather middle-of-the road, with the usual juniper and citrus, plus a lot of added sugar. Doesn’t do much for me. 5/10

10. Artesian Bar Old Tom, The Langham Hotel This is made specially at the hotel by blending two gins, adding some nuts and then wood ageing it. It does indeed smell of hazelnuts but also something sour, suggesting the dryness of walnuts too. Plus a bit of wood and bran—like opening a packet of bran flakes. It tastes a little of tea and hazelnuts. And a bit like bran flakes. 5/10

As a group we all agreed the Dorchester Old Tom was the nicest. For me the other stand-out gin was the Both’s; it came third in our overall rankings as a group, with the Xorigeur in second place. Hayman’s came fourth and the Langham gin fifth.

Martinez Cocktails made with (left to right) Xoriguer, Dorchester and Both's

We then tried the top three in three classic Old Tom cocktails:

Collins (gin, lemon juice, sugar and soda water) With the Both’s elements of fennel and violets come out; with the Dorchester it’s lemon and lime. Made with Xoriguer that pine flavour comes through, reminiscent of Retsina.

Martinez (gin, red vermouth, maraschino, Angostura bitters) The sweetness level of Both’s balances well for me and brings out the complex flavours, whereas the Dorchester here seems too sweet and fruity. The Retsina quality of the Xoriguer works surprisingly harmoniously with the aromatic elements of the vermouth and the bitters.

Old Tom Cocktail (gin, sugar, orange bitters) Here again I think the Xoriguer actually works best, with the astringent, woody, aromatic character balancing with the sweetness of the recipe. Both’s is pretty good, with the drink again bringing out a floral, violet character that I didn’t really notice neat. But overall this cocktail is too sweet for me, I suspect.

While satisfyingly thorough, I admit that this experiment doesn’t really get you very far: my two favourites are both largely unobtainable! I wasn’t so taken with the Xoriguer as some, but I know David later experimented with sweetening it and ageing it with wood chips to try and approach what he feels historical Old Tom would have been like. Of course there are clearly as many approaches to creating an Old Tom as there are products, and doubtless more besides. Personally I feel a product that is simply a sweeter gin is a bit pointless when you can simply sweeten an ordinary gin. I’m more interested in recipes that offer a different and more intense botanical mix. As I mentioned before, my curiosity was piqued when I heard that Prohibition gin is based on a nineteenth-century recipe: yet its maker thinks of it more as a New Western rather than an Old Tom. New Western gins in classic London gin cocktails often taste rather peculiar to me, but this got me thinking that experimenting with New Westerns in place of Old Toms in classic cocktail recipes might prove fruitful. I shall report back…

Sloe! sloe! Quick, quick—sloe!

DBS braces himself for the task ahead. He looks suitably daunted

Sloe gin is not something I think about most of the time. But while testing some serving suggestions with Beefeater’s Winter Edition gin I tried one cocktail that called for sloe gin as an ingredient. I happened to have a miniature of Plymouth’s version and it got me wondering how many firms made it and how they compared.

I suggested a tasting to DBS and, being a compulsive taxonomist, he jumped at the idea. Considering that one manufacturer told us that most of the people he knew who drank it actually made their own, it was surprising that we managed to unearth 17 different products to try. (There at least another three which we have not yet tried.) All the producers were happy to supply samples (well, all except Gordon’s, but since theirs is the mostly widely distributed perhaps they felt they didn’t need the publicity)—in fact I think many were delighted that anyone even knew about their product.

Traditionally you harvest sloes, fruit of the blackthorn and related to the plum, and infuse them in gin with sugar, sometimes adding cloves, cinnamon and/or almond (though apparently a well-made sloe gin extracts an almond-like flavour from the sloe stones). Pick your berries in October or early November when they are most ripe, and prick or cut them. Folklore has it that this should be done using thorns from the bush itself—and if you must use a metal knife or fork, be sure it be silver. Arrrr. I have heard that the sugar is not just for taste, but is necessary early in the procedure to extract the full flavour from the berries. Add the sloes in a half-and-half mixture with gin, along with the sugar, and shake daily for the first week, then weekly for a month or two. Sounds like the idea is to have it ready just in time for Christmas, though I’m told the flavour will be better if left till the next Christmas. Even after the liquor is strained off, the leftover berries can by used to make “slider”, cider infused with post-gin sloes, or indeed to make sloe jam.

(Left to right) Will Sprunt, me, Fleur de Guerre, Compton-Bassett, David
Bridgman-Smith, Robert Beckwith, Sara Bridgman-Smith

What you end up with conventionally is something that balances red berry fruit, tartness, sweetness, dry tannins from the skins and warmth from the spirit. But if making your own is such a traditional ritual (even Prince Phillip does it), how would these commercial products measure up?

We assembled a team of seven: David and Sara Bridgman-Smith, Fleur de Geurre, Compton-Bassett, Robert Beckwith, Will Sprunt and myself. In order to sample this many different products between seven of us would mean 119 glasses which our venue, Graphic, weren’t able to free up, so we sourced some plastic shot glasses. (I’ve no idea what the “correct” vessel for tasting sloe gin is, but at least this way it was a level playing field.) Perhaps we should have had some homemade sloe gin to compare against, but we would have needed to think about that months earlier—and it wouldn’t really have been much use to you, the reader, as you could not have gone out and bought that anyway.

Of course it’s hard to keep a memory of 17 flavours in your head, and David had an idea to split the samples into four tranches, giving a favourite out of each, then seeking our favourites of the favourites (slightly flawed—what if the best and second best of all turn out to be in the same tranche?). We also paused halfway through, to wrap our tongues in hot towels and massage them back into shape.

Made it to the end! And my notes are still relatively legible

But it quickly emerged to me that there was another way of subdividing the samples. Some seemed clearly “classic” in style—specifically Plymouth, Hayman’s, Gordon’s and Marks and Spencer—with a deep red colour and aiming for a traditional balance of the flavours described above. Then there was a second group which I described as “ginny”—Hawker’s, Sipsmith, Foxdenton and Sloe Motion. These were the ones that clearly wanted you to remember that this was originally gin. (I gather some commercial products just use neutral grain spirit and bypass the actual gin stage; which seems valid enough to me. I suspect that the traditional reason for starting with gin is that that is what was to hand. It might be interesting to home-make batches side by side using gin and vodka.) These high-gin examples unsurprisingly were also the ones highest in alcohol. (Overall the sloe gins ranged from 17.6% to 30% ABV, but most were around 26%, evidently the point which most manufacturers felt offered the right balance.)

The remaining samples, which I dubbed “artisanal”, went in various directions. Some were light and fruity, others sweet, others heavily spiced. I’ll save my individual tasting notes till the end and cut to the chase—which drink was best? Attempting to rank all 17 in order of preference was too big a task for a mortal palate, but we felt that tasters would probably gravitate towards certain favourites, so we asked everyone to name their top three, in order. Awarding three points for a first place position, two points for a second and one for a third, we were able to come up with a reasonably scientific scoring system. It’s also worth noting that between seven people picking three sloe gins each, only ten products actually featured at all. Out of the total of 42 points awarded, here is how they were allotted:

GOLD MEDAL
Plymouth
(7 points)

SILVER MEDAL
Hawker’s, Sipsmith and Bramley & Gage Organic
(all with 6 points)

BRONZE MEDAL
Foxdenton
(5 points)

6th: Juniper Green (4 points)
7th: Jack Cain (2½ points)
= 8th: Sloe Motion (2 points)
= 8th: Bramley & Gage Original (2 points)
10th: Gabriel Boudier (1½ points)

See below for the also-rans that received nul points.

If you’ve not tried sloe gin there are, as you can see, plenty to choose from (though I note that the most widely available, Gordon’s, didn’t even make it into the top ten). I admit it’s not easy to get anything other than Gordon’s, though Majestic do stock Sipsmith’s. Follow the links to individual sites to find out how to purchase.


Full list with my tasting notes (in the random order in which we sampled them):
1. Moniack Sloe Liqueur (17.6%, £12.99) A light, orangey colour, more like a rosé wine. Cider nose. Sweet, light palate with a thin, simple taste.
2. Bramley and Gage Sweet Sloe Gin (26%, £11.49 for 35cl) B&G actually make three different sloe products. This is darker in colour than the Moniack and with a richer nose, of red berries. Also sweet, though better balanced. Almonds on the nose and palate. Herbal finish that, as Will points out, is reminiscent of certain Eastern European liqueurs and bitters.
3. Plymouth Sloe Gin (26%, c. £17.95) Darker but with a quieter nose and a drier, tarter palate. Balanced and straightforward. The website makes a song and dance about how traditional it is and the pure Dartmoor water that goes into it, but in fact the sloes come from Poland.
4. Sipsmith 2009 Vintage Sloe Gin (29%, £20 for 50cl) Sipsmith make their vodka, gin and sloe gin (in that order—the one from another) in a garage in west London, in the first new copper still to be built in London for about 200 years. They make a point of the fact that this batch was bottled last year. I categorise this as a gin-led product (hence the high ABV). Indeed it has a strong juniper “blue note” and makes the Plymouth seem quite almondy by comparison. I got a hint of pipe tobacco.
5. Bramley & Gage Sloe Gin (26%, £11.95 for 35cl) Unsurprisingly like no. 2 but not as sweet. Almonds less pronounced. Clear herbal nose with cinnamon on the palate. Expected to like it more.
6. Lyme Bay Sloe Liqueur (26%, from £13.23 for 35cl) Smells of juniper but is actually quite sweet and orangey on the palate. Also has some dark brown note, like coffee, perhaps.
7. Gordon’s Sloe Gin (26%, from £15.99) Citrus nose, balanced palate—almonds, alcohol, berries. Will mentioned that it tastes of used tea bags—in a good way—and once the idea is there you can definitely taste an Earl Grey element.
8. Hawker’s (28%, about £17.50) Apparently this was the first sloe gin to be made commercially, to a recipe dating back to 1790. Although it is made by Desmond Payne, Master Distiller for Beefeater, it actually uses Plymouth gin as its base, but its sloes (unlike with Plymouth’s own sloe gin) are wild-picked on Dartmoor. I think this is a cracking example and once I had tasted it it remained my favourite. It is a ginny sloe gin (hell, I guess I just like the taste of gin) but I these elements balance well with the sloes and the whole is better integrated than the other gin-led examples.
9. Juniper Green Organic Sloe Gin (26%, £22.25) Uses wild sloes from Romania. Citrus nose, with a hint of fermenting pears, and elements of cinnamon and coffee on the palate. Popular round the table.
10. Hayman’s Sloe Gin (26%, £17.29) An example of the classic style. Smells of mulled wine and oranges, with a hint of maltwine (i.e. unaged whisky, and a distinctive element in genever). Well balanced, but not hugely interesting. By comparison the M&S version seems more weighted towards citrus and the Plymouth seems chocolatey.
11. Bramley & Gage Organic Sloe Gin (26%, £13.27 for 35cl, £22.47 for 70cl) Uses a different (organic) gin base from the normal B&G version. Smells faintly of ink or boot polish, but not necessarily in a bad way. Almondy, but less so that the non-organic version.
12. Sloe Motion Sloe Gin (26%, £15.95 for 35cl, 22.95 for 70cl) These people are sloe-crazy, making sloe brandy, sloe whisky, sloe vodka, sloe chutney, sloe truffles. They probably live in a house  built from compacted sloes. Perhaps surprisingly, the sloe gin falls into the gin-led category. Hints of lavender.
13. Gabriel Boudier (25%, £17.55) Made in Dijon, in France. Very soft and quite sweet. Perhaps suffered from coming late in the list, as there is more going on than you at first think. Will sums it up as “kind of pleasant”, which sounds like damning with faint praise.
14. Marks and Spencer Sloe Gin (26%, £10.95 for 50cl) A classic style, with an almond element but balanced, with no angles or corners. Nice enough.
15. Foxdenton Sloe Gin (29%, £18.95) “Recognisably Different Sloe Gin”, they say. They’re right in the sense that, even among the other ginny sloe gins, this one tastes as if they really didn’t want to contaminate their lovely gin with any more sloes than absolutely necessary. Rather unintegrated. Doesn’t work for me though others like it; it’s DBS’s favourite.
16. Cowen Sloe Gin (26%, £15.29 for 50cl) Smooth, subtle, herbal, with coffee notes. OK.
17. Jack Cain’s Sloe Gin (30%, £24 for 70cl, £4.95 for 5cl) The driest and strongest sample here. Cain was a 19th-Century entrepreneur, smuggler and illicit distiller in Northumbria and this is made to an “old family recipe”. Quite a hardcore drink, more like a sloe bitters, seemingly with no added sugar. But intriguingly complex, with elements of vanilla, chocolate, coriander. Probably quite a useful cocktail ingredient; I'm definitely going to try a Sloetini. You can buy miniatures online but if you want a full bottle you’ll have to get it in person from the makers or from Fenwick’s in Newcastle.