Beefeater London Dry Gin is 47% abv / 94 proof and distilled and bottled in Kensington, England. It is the last premium London Dry Gin to actually still be made in London. Considered one of the top brands around the world, Beefeater has nine botanicals: juniper, angelica root, angelica seeds, coriander seeds, liquorice, bitter almonds, orris, Seville oranges, and lemon peel. The botanicals are added to the spirits and left to steep for 24 hours before distilling.

The aroma starts out soft and then rapidly becomes quite hot with a strong juniper nose, followed by a flinty shale smell with the tiniest bit of spicy citrus. I sniffed deeply time and again and started flashing back on the deepest notes of the aroma. It took me back to when I was a kid living in Park Slope, Brooklyn.The sidewalks were paved with big four foot by four foots slabs of Flagstone, a slate/shale style stone that is a deep, blue gray color. In the summer it would heat up and you would get this faint hot stone smell. Then when a summer shower came through the smell would explode out from the sidewalks in a hot and steamy, flinty shale smell that made you feel alive and well. This is what I find pleasing about the aroma of Beefeater, the childhood summer smell of cool rain on hot Flagstone sidewalks. So even though today is a crisp and cold November day, for an all too brief time I feel like I'm back in a... Hot town, summer in the city, back of my neck getting dirty and gritty. Been down, isn't it a pity, doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city. All around people looking half dead, walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head. But at night it's a different world, go out and find a girl. Come-on Come-on and dance all night, despite the heat it'll be alright...In the summer, in the city... In the summer, in the city...

Anyway, getting back to the Beefeaters, the taste is strong juniper, followed by some citrus and spice. The taste isn't extremely complicated, just clean and neat with a faint lip tingling buzz. This is a traditional tasting gin that can be used best in Martini's, GnT's, cocktails, whatever you please. It isn't my favorite gin by far, but I sure as all hell wouldn't kick it out of bed.