Oxley Classic English Dry Gin

Product of: United Kingdom

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This 'cold distilled' gin is flavoured with 14 botanicals ('Recipe 38'): juniper, meadowsweet (an English herb), cocoa, coriander, angelica root, cassia bark, grains of paradise, liquorice, nutmeg, iris root, vanilla beans and fresh hand-peeled citrus peels: lemon, orange and grapefruit zest.

Oxley is 'distilled' at sub-zero temperatures in a vacuum utilising the fact that that the boiling point of all liquids is reduced as pressure is decreased. Cold distillation lowers the pressure to a near vacuum so allowing distillation to take place at approximately -5ºC. Re-condensing takes place at a staggering -100°C around a probe cooled by liquid argon. The purported benefit of this process is that the natural botanicals are not cooked during distillation so reputedly giving fresher flavours to the finished gin.

Oxley is made using a three shot process, i.e. the distillate is stretched by blending with two parts neutral spirit - even then the intricacies of the cold distillation process result in only 120 bottles being made from each distillation which produces just 23 litres of pure gin distillate at 88% alc./vol..

So something of a space age gin with nothing much classic about its production process other than a fairly traditional line up of botanicals. So why is it labelled as a "Classic English dry gin"? Apparently, and rather contentiously, because the word 'classic' has been used in reference to the use of juniper, coriander, angelica and citrus which are of course 'classic' gin flavours. Interestingly Oxley conforms to all the requirements to be labelled a 'London dry gin'.

Review and Tasting

Sampled on 01/07/2009

Appearance:

(bottle No. B03796) Crystal clear.

Aroma:

Superbly clean, fresh nose with very mild piney juniper and generous freshly zested citrus, particularly orange.

Taste:

Bursts alive with sweet zesty orange citrus, moderate juniper and herbal complexity. Pink grapefruit emerges and then dominates.

Aftertaste:

Zesty, pronounced juniper finish with lingering liquorice. Not as rounded as some gins but then they're not as fresh and zesty.