Berkeley Square Gin with Nancy Mitford

Berkeley Square gin is another Joanne Moore creation (she's behind some great gins, though this one could maybe have been better marketed). I didn't try it until we stopped stocking it (it was reduced to clear and I love a bargain) if I'd known how good it was I'd have bought more.

Marketed as a gentleman's gin (Bloom is the feminine equivalent from the same stable) and inspired by the herbs in an English garden, what we get is a lovely fresh gin which explores the herbaceous notes of the traditional gin flavour profile. Which is precisely what makes Joanne Moore's gins so exciting - I love the way she takes an element that is in itself perfectly conventional within the gin flavour spectrum and then expands upon it. The result is something intriguingly different but still a traditional gin.

The idea of marketing gin by gender doesn't appeal to me at all - and perhaps explains why Berkeley Square wasn't as popular with our customers as it might have been. Bloom (which does have a particularly pretty bottle) does better, but Opihr has been a much bigger hit, and Thomas Dakin looks set to do better as well (they're all out if the same stable).

It's a shame because it really is a good gin, the sort that works in its own over ice, makes a really decent gin and tonic, and shines in cocktails (Gin foundry suggest something called The Last Word, sadly it involves Chartreuse which I really don't like, but I might give it a go anyway. Details Here).

The tag line 'effortlessly superior' and the Mayfair styling remind me of irrisistably of Nancy Mitford with her U and non U snobbery (which I've always assumed is a bit tongue in cheek - but then I guess the gin marketing is too). These days I like Mitford in small doses, I find she can be hard to take in any quantity - but sometimes nothing else will do.