Sipsmith London Dry Gin is a distinctly London-made expression rooted in traditional copper-pot distillation. Bottled at 41.6% ABV, it begins with a pure English wheat spirit and a recipe of ten botanicals: Macedonian juniper, Bulgarian coriander seed, French angelica root, Spanish liquorice root and ground almond, Italian orris root, Chinese cassia bark, Madagascan cinnamon, Seville orange, and Spanish lemon peel.
Its character is shaped by Sipsmith’s one-shot production method. The botanicals are steeped in the spirit, first at 60–65°C for 15 minutes and then for a further 12 hours, before distillation in a 300-litre copper pot still. Rather than creating a concentrate for later dilution with additional spirit, Sipsmith distills the complete recipe in a single run. Only the heart of the distillation is retained; the gin is then brought to bottling strength with Lydwell Spring water. It is not filtered, and no spirit is added after distillation.
The result is described by the producer as particularly dry, with a zesty citrus finish. Its balance and richness make it suited to a classic gin and tonic, while its smooth profile is equally at home in a martini.
Sipsmith was founded in 2009 by Sam Galsworthy and Fairfax Hall, with Jared Brown as master distiller. The team successfully campaigned to change a longstanding rule requiring stills to hold at least 1,800 litres, opening the way for their compact copper stills and London’s first new distiller’s licence in 189 years. That history gives this flagship bottling particular significance: it pairs a traditional London Dry botanical profile with the small-scale, one-shot approach that helped define Sipsmith from the beginning.
