I recently had the great pleasure of trying both the Darnley’s View Gin and their equally impressive Spiced Gin. This distillery is Scotland based although the Gin is produced in the London style. The distillery website notes on the ingredients of the Gin, the following. Bottled at 40% ABV.
“In our gin the distinctive pine, lavender camphor-like flavour of the juniper berry is the keynote around which all the other botanicals are built. We select the most aromatic, oil rich berries which grow in Southern Europe.
Lemon peel dried in the Spanish sunshine adds a fresh crisp bite.
Elder trees grow freely on our Scottish estate. The delicate fruity flavours of elderflower are not only a reminder of our Scottish heritage, they also add an extra special floral dimension to our gin”.
We found upon trying this very aromatic gin, that the upper notes do come through as citrus, with a fresh scent of lemon followed closely by the floral grapey Elderflower The herbal notes come on the back of the sip with slight pine and a bracing almost alpine taste. This gin made a great addition to a simple gin and tonic as the tonic doesn’t overwhelm the beautiful essence of this Gin.
Darnley’s View Spiced Gin
Bottled at a slightly stronger 42.7% ABV, this wonderful entry into the spiced gin family shows it’s true colors in it’s first sniff. It smells warm. Notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves all arrive immediately on the nose and then on the palate. Followed closely by the more herbal and juniper notes, the experience is a unique one. We enjoyed this gin in a number of cocktail formats, including a very unique martini. Notes from the website on this spirit:
Darnley’s View is made with a selction of ten berries, seeds, peels and roots collectively known as botanicals. The prinicpal botanicals in our recipe are juniper, cinnamon and nutmeg. We decided to bottle at 42.7% as it is the point where the combination of warming spices makes our gin tastes its best.
Overall we found both of these Gins to be a welcome addition to the spirit category and give them both 5 CHEERS (out of 5)