Review

Burleigh's
Export Strength Gin

45 West Distillers Ltd., Nanpantan, Loughborough, Leicestershire, England, UK.

Burleigh’s Gin.

Founded in October 2013, 45 West Distillers is the work of its four directors: CEO Phil Burley, Graham Veitch, Tim Prime and Master Distiller Jamie Baxter. Having previously worked for William Chase and City of London Distilleries Jamie Baxter has developed a well-deserved reputation as one of the best white spirit distillers in the UK and this has been brought to bear at 45 West. Their first product Burleigh’s Gin was launched at the end of June 2014 taking only 8 months and 2 days, resulting in the fastest conception to delivery of a Gin know to us in modern times!

The quartet also runs a sister business Exigo Brewing and Distilling, a rebranding of a previous company. This company provides full turnkey solutions for a diverse range of brewing and distilling projects from conception through to completion. Given Mr Baxter’s background and their rapid start up of 45 West, this can only bode well for Exigo.

At 45 West, the team look set to produce a whole range of different products in the forthcoming years. They also run a Gin school at their Distillery, running half day sessions where individuals can make their own Gin but also provides the facilities for would be distillers to develop their own recipes in preparedness to launch their own distillery.

The Gin is made on a rural farm in a converted milking shed. Fabricated by Holstein in Germany, the copper still named “Messy Bessy” can produce around 3,000 bottles of spirit per week. We believe the Gin is vapor infused and diluted to bottling strength with twice purified water.

The Gin is presented in a black bottle and red cap with white monotone calligraphy and white text, not unlike some Port bottles.

London Dry Gin.

47% (94 Proof).

$$$$$$ - $$$$$$$. Not available in the USA. Try online from Master of Malt in the UK but expect to add a further 40% for shipping worldwide.

Uses the same 11 botanicals as the original Burleigh's Gin, including: burdock (local), coriander (Bulgaria or Morocco), dandelion (local), elderberry (local), juniper berries (Tuscany, Italy), orange peel (fresh), orris and silver birch sap (local). The remaining botanicals are kept a secret by the distillery.

The distillery is situated in an area of the Midlands known as Charnwood Forest, next to a woodland reserve called Burleigh Wood. Story has it Jamie Baxter was walking through the wood one day and came across various flora including silver birch, dandelion, burdock, elderberry and iris. These became the inspiration for the recipe and the name of the ancient wood for the Gin, and the creative tag line of “Gin from the wood”. The term “Export Strength” refers to the increased alcohol content to 47% ABV, as opposed to the 40% ABV found in the original Burleigh’s Gin.

On the nose are lots of earthy juniper and vibrant lemon citrus with a green grass herbal aroma plus some faint floral and liquorice notes. On the palate this creamy full-bodied oily spirit has plenty of juniper with lemon citrus, woody spice and floral notes. On the close the juniper and citrus continue with a long warm dry peppery finish.

This is a nice London Dry style of Gin and manages to achieve a good balance between the forward juniper and the creamy elements of the floral, lemon and spice. This, for us, has a lot more character and presence than the original Burleigh’s Gin and worth paying the extra cost. Regrettably we only had a small amount of this spirit to sample and look forward to trying more of this in the future.

Our congratulations to Jamie Baxter and the team at 45 West, keep up the good work and we’ll look forward to everything you produce now and in future.

Unknown.