It’s not every day you get a bottle delivered to your house of a new product that has a note from the brand owner telling you that this is the first bottle outside of his own house. So this past Thursday, when exactly that happened, and I found in my hands a bottle of Hammer & Son Old English Gin, I was pretty excited to say the least. I’ve been waiting for the release of this product for several months, ever since Henrik Hammer (of Geranium Gin) mentioned that he had found a 1783 gin recipe in the safe at a distillery and was going to have a go at recreating it.

But what exactly is an Old English Gin? Well essentially it’s the original style of gin produced in England, and is somewhere between the sweet rich flavour of Genever, and the dry style of gin we’re used to today. It differs from London Dry in that it is slightly sweetened, a tradition that goes back to a time when poor quality spirits could have some of their impurities masked by the addition of sugar after distillation. The decision not to refer to this new product as an Old Tom Gin, as some might expect, comes from Henrik’s research into the history of gin in the 1700s, and his desire to produce a spirit that would be true to the origins of English Gin.

In fact many of the things that make this product unique stem from the way in which gin was consumed before modern production techniques led to the introduction of the London Dry style of gin that we know so well today. It seems that Henrik has really done his homework and thought about every detail of this gin, not only the recipe, but also the bottle and label, in an attempt to bring a ‘new’ product to the market in a way that really reflects the history of gin as it was consumed at the end of the 18^th century.

WHAT”S IN A NAME?

At first it seems slightly crazy that this product is named ‘Old English’, after all there is currently a revival and fascination with ‘Old Tom Gin’, but as Henrik told me when he first thought about recreating this old recipe, he didn’t want to get caught up in the nickname, he preferred to call it what it is… the old style of English gin. So is Old English Gin the same thing as Old Tom? In essence yes; it’s a London style Gin that has been sweetened and made in the same tradition as what we now think of as Old Tom. As Henrik explains it “when buying Gin in the 1700s and 1800s you’d be offered a simple choice; English Gin or Holland’s Gin. English Gin was branded with many different names such as Samson, Tom, Old Tom, or with the name of the distiller. Thus Old Tom is not a style of gin but simply one of many names within the category of English Gin at this time”.

Staying true to the origins of English gin at the time that this recipe first came into existence, Henrik worked with the distillers at the Langley distillery to recreate it as closely as was possible. This meant using a copper pot still, in this case the oldest pot still currently in use in England. The still is affectionately known as Angela (or Grandma) and is one of the only stills left made from British copper. At every step of the creation of this new (old) gin, it seems like care has been taken to make it as authentic as possible. The only omission from the original recipe is turpentine oil, which while commonly used in the 1700’s is highly poisonous and not something you would want to be drinking today.

Having perfected the liquid, Henrik turned his attention to packaging, and once again decided to research what was authentic to the drinking customs from London in the late 1700s. His research quickly brought to light the fact that paper labels would have been uncommon, bottles were an expensive commodity, and in fact it was common practice to take an empty bottle to a gin shop and have it filled. A decision was made that recycled glass would fit the bill nicely, and as his research also showed that the UK was the largest importer of Champagne at that time, what could be better than to reuse old Champagne bottles? The bottles are simply washed and sanitized, which of course means that the packaging is almost completely carbon neutral, another thing that was important to Henrik in the creation of this Gin.

Instead of affixing a paper label, which wouldn’t be either environmentally friendly or particularly authentic, Henrik decided to silkscreen print the bottles instead, using environmentally friendly paint. Seeing the bottle for the first time I was struck by how very different it is from any other Gin I have ever seen. The bottle is finished with a cork and sealed with organic wax; it truly feels as though it’s from another era!

WHAT’S IN THE BOTTLE?

Well of course the simple answer is gin, and in this case that’s obvious from the second that you pop the cork and are rewarded with a crisp clean juniper aroma. As you pour some into the glass and take your first sniff you quickly realise that behind the juniper there is a rich earthy complexity, hinting at bitter barks, warm hay, warm black pepper and dry spice. There are green notes here too, crushed leaves, basil and mint, but they’re top notes that are just hinted at in the aroma. It’s immediately obvious that this is a very different Gin, and from the first aroma you want to take a sip.

On tasting this Old English Gin you are rewarded with a surprisingly controlled sweetness upfront that coats your tongue giving a silky mouth feel. Behind the sweetness comes orange, pine from the juniper and nutmeg spice, this leads through to the middle of the flavour profile, where bitter flavours emerge. These bitter notes aren’t at all unpleasant and they serve to dampen down the sweetness and dry out the gin and now we’re moving into earthy notes of bitter leaves, tree bark and woody, almost nutty flavours. There are hints of liquorice and an elusive floral note that is hard to pin down but very pleasant indeed, and as the flavour slowly fades you are left with a hint of sweetness and spice that reminds you to take another sip.

It’s a gin that makes you want to explore old cocktail recipes and try them in a new light, to see how they might have tasted when they were first conceived. It has you guessing at how different the Martinez might have been from the drink we know today, or if Old English Gin might actually make a lot of sense in the julep (I’ve never been comfortable with London Dry juleps!). Hammer & Son offers us a chance to explore well-loved cocktails and see where they came from, how they used to be and how they have evolved and changed. Most wonderfully it gives us a chance to connect with the bartenders of old and understand a little more clearly what flavours they were working with all those years ago.

So here are three cocktails for you to try (when you can get this product, which Henrik promises will be soon!) with Old English Gin that might make you look at the category in a whole new light.

MARTINEZ

The Martinez is one of those recipes that springs to mind when you think os the Old English style of gin, and this version is based on a recipe from 1884. This may not be a Martinez as you know it, but trust me it’s worth trying, the dry vermouth and sweeter gin play off of each other beautifully and the drink has plenty of depth and character. There will be more about the Martinez very soon, but for now, here’s the recipe:

60ml dry vermouth

30ml Hammer & Son Old English Gin

3 – 4 dashes Angostura bitters

3 dashes gomme

In a mixing glass stir all ingredients with cracked or cubed ice and strain into a chilled coupe before garnishing with a small lemon twist. While many associate sweet vermouth with the Martinez, we found this version using dry vermouth to be a great interpritation of this classic old cocktai.

HAMMERED GOLD

Our tribute to the exceptional Mr. Henrik Hammer, who has brought us another new (old?) gin and has ensured that we have a chance to experience what gin was like in the days before London Dry was first conceived. This is a twist on the gin sour, with notes of vanilla, cherry and fortified wine playing with the spicy and earthy notes of the gin.

50ml Hammer & Son Old English Gin

25ml lemon juice

10ml Galliano

5ml maraschino

10ml Dubonnet Rouge

Shake all ingredients with plenty of cubed ice and strain into a chilled coupe or a cocktail glass, with no garnish. This drink works equally well on the rocks and can be garnished with a small sprig of fresh thyme to add an interesting herbal aroma.

OLD ENGLISH DAISY

Ok so there’s nothing revolutionary about this basic twist on the classic gin daisy, but a simple drink with great ingredients is sometimes the perfect way to go!

50ml Hammer & Son Old English Gin

20ml lemon juice

10ml Grand Marnier

Shake all ingredients with cubed ice and strain into a chilled coupe before finishing of with an orange twist. I like to rest the twist on the edge of the glass so that with every sip you get the aroma of the orange oils, but that’s up to you.

Henrik has tried to achieve a gin that could be consumed the way it traditionally would have been in 1783, and that means neat as well as in early mixed drinks such as punch , sangarees and rickeys, and in my opinion he has succeeded marvelously. With new gins launching at a rate that’s hard to keep up with, it’s a rare thing for me to get excited about one of them. Most are simply alright gins that offer nothing new to the category, then there are those that have just chosen a random exotic ‘botanical’ in an attempt to create something ‘quirky’, there are even some that seem to think colouring their gin is enough to earn them a place on the back bar. In the case of Hammer & Son Old English Gin, we finally have a product that adds to the gin category, faithfully reproducing a lost style of gin and giving us an insight into how gin would have been consumed in the 1700s.

We salute you Mr. Hammer, and your most excellent Old English Gin!

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