Review

Burleigh's 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 black bottles with white monotone calligraphy and white text, not unlike some Port bottles.

London Dry Gin.

40% (80 Proof).

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

Uses 11 botanicals, many local, 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”.

On the nose is earthy juniper and vibrant lemon citrus with some green grass herbal and floral notes. On the palate this light creamy spirit is medium to heavy bodied and has juniper and lemon citrus with dry earthy (angelica) and woody spice (coriander with cinnamon or cassia) notes. On the close the juniper and citrus continue with a light sweetness (orange, possibly liquorice) plus floral violets (orris) and a long warm dry peppery finish (coriander). A very well-balanced Gin with a light friendly complexity.

A crisp spirit with all the elements of a classic London Dry Gin, making for a softly velvet drink, when taken neat. Burleigh’s recommend a pink grapefruit garnish in a Gin and Tonic although we suspect a sweet orange garnish should nicely compliment this drink too. Regrettably we only had a small amount of this spirit to sample but we hear it makes nice cocktails including the Aviation and Tom Collins.

This Gin is no less than you would expect from a master distiller like Jamie Baxter but having said that, it is no more than you would expect either. Thus this may be a little disappointing for some, however to keep perspective, it is still better than mere mortals like us could ever dream of making so is recommended by us accordingly.

Unknown.