Review: Jensen’s Bermondsey London dry gin

Something that gin has over most any other spirit are the stories that lie behind their genesis.

Sometimes on your journey of discovery into the world of gin, you encounter some that are a revelation and show you what is possible

For me, Jensen’s Gin was such a moment.

Long before this blog got started I was making a point of looking out for new gins and sampling the good, the bad and the excellent. On my online travels I came across Jensen’s several years back (not their current website or distillery) and its was a minimalist affair that immediately got me hooked.

The backstory involved a Londoner, Christian Jensen, in Tokyo who came across a superb gin in one of those tiny, tiny bars they do so perfectly there… and so it goes like this:

“Over the ensuing months Christian would stop by this bar regularly to have the same drink. When it came time to return to London, the bar owner gave Christian his last remaining bottle of that gin, which was possibly also the last in the world. When he was back in London, he set about tracking down further bottles of his beloved gin and his search yielded the recipe for it from a public records office. With the help of Charles Maxwell at Thames Distillers, Christian reproduced the gin he had first tasted in Japan and so Jensen’s Bermondsey London Dry Gin was born.”

You see what I mean.

Now, at the time, you couldn’t get the gin here in Australia. I recall emailing them to get a bottle or two but it would have been prohibitively $$ for even a gin fiend like me.

Happily, that has now changed, and my pals at Cocktail Traders now make it available online.

What’s important to note about this gin, is that its aiming to recreate a style of London Gin that is completely classic and that precedes the modern craft gin era.

So you’re tasting a little history here, made in a 500 litre Coffey still under the careful eye of distiller, Dr Anne Brock at Bermondsey Distillery on the Thames.

They use a British wheat spirit as the base and the classic gin botanicals which are added to the still dried and then steeped to release their flavour.

Tasting Notes

Neat: room temperature: gentle on the palette with very integrated botanicals with a hint of juniper etc up front and citrus notes at the end. Medium dry finish, not particularly austere.

Dry Martini: I used 10ml of Dolin Vermouth to 50ml of Jensen’s with the bottle pre-chilled.

It made for a very elegant Martini that has perfect manners.

No one botanical dominated, rather it was a harmonious whole. Although it can be versatile enough in a range of cocktails, or a G+T, it seems to me that this gin is destined for the Martini.

Clean, and subtle, you get the hints of the botanicals as you go along. A very agreeable cocktail hour companion indeed.

It epitomised the class you expect from the golden era of Martinis in London at places like the Savoy or Dorchester. Refinement in a glass.

5 stars.

The Take Home

Simply put this is an exceptional gin that for me was worth the year’s of waiting. This is London Dry gin at its most refined.

The Details