Nose: Lemon and orange aromas - juice, zest, peel - at the beginning that's about all you can smell. After a while it shows a floral icing-sugar fragrance but the nose remains steadfastly centered on citrus. After a long time (and in the dry glass) there is some herbal complexity with lemon thyme and citronella appearing, but the juniper is light here.
Palate: Very sweet and soft arrival with citrus flavours - orange, sherbet lemon, sweet lime, mandarin and a trace note of juniper way in the background. Less herbal on the palate than the nose but some mild warm spices do appear. The texture is thick and syrupy, plush and almost cloying.
Finish: Medium. Sweet and citrus to the very end.
If you handed me this blind and said it was a subtle lemon/orange liqueur I'd believe you, it's so sweet and easy to sip neat. You can instantly see how people lapped this up as a neat spirit in the old days. It is a very confectionery sort of profile - like lemon candy or lemon frosted spongecake.
The hefty sugar presence makes for a very gentle and rolling finish, but as a mixer I'm on the fence about this. It does make a palatable and easy sipping gin and tonic (no citrus needed - just tonic) but it lacks the intensity of juniper I like.
Texture is what this spirit has going for it so if used in cocktails that require syrup, try leaving that out - there may be enough sweetness from the gin and you might find your usual sweet cocktail gains a pleasantly dry aspect at the expense of some heft in the flavour profile. I'd recommend experimenting with old-time cocktails but it does not work so well as the base for a martini, it's too sweet.
On the whole I enjoyed this gin.
"Above Average" : 80/100 (3 stars)
70.0
USD
per
Bottle
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OK, I get it: this has disappointingly little juniper and is tricky to use because it's an old tom. That seems pretty reasonable to me. I've liked some barrel aged old tom gins because they're more complex and I can jsut sip them on their own, but I wouldn't want to have to figure out how to use them in a cocktail.
@ContemplativeFox I wouldn't call it a problem as such, it's just noticeable in comparison to a London dry, but yes all Old Tom gin is sweet - it's a specific marker of the style. Old Tom gins were always sweetened - in fact that's precisely why "London" gin is called dry - because it is *not* sweet. I'm sure for many people Old Tom would be preferable - it would depend on the sweetness of one's teeth :-) I've only tasted a few Old Tom gins but they have all had a similar degree of sweetness, so this one is not unusually sweet.
Is the sweetness a general problem with old tom gins or is it particularly prevalent in this one?