Review

Palmers Gin

Alcohols Ltd, Langley Distillery, Langley Green, Warley, Near Birmingham, England, UK.

Alcohols Ltd.

The WH Palmer Group was established in 1805. Its main activity is chemical compounding and wholesaling. Adam Wallis-Palmer, the Great Great Grandson of the founder, is the current Managing Director.

Founded in 1836, the Langley site started out as Showells brewery, which fell into decline and was purchased by a group of local licensed publicans. They started using it for Gin distillation in 1902 and renamed it the Oldbury Gin Distillery. The distillery went into decline and the WH Palmer Group took over the dormant distillery in 1955. Now referred to as Langley Distillery, it is run as a subsidiary company under the incorporated name of Alcohols Ltd. The distillery has a staff of only 4 people: Distillery Manager Peter McKay, Master Distiller Rob Dorsett, plus Andrew Bartlam and Trevor Fletcher. The main headquarters is based at Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire.

With over a century of Gin distillation history, the distillery has a range of seven different production stills. There are three underground spring fed rivers that converge at the distillery’s site. However, the water is not quite pure enough to be used in the production of Gin, and instead is only used to cool the distillate. Langley has no bottling facilities on site and the resultant distillate is transported in bulk to customers, according to their needs.

Made according to a recipe that's more than 350-years-old.

The Gin is presented in a tall rectangular bottle with slopping shoulders. It has a large white rectangular label with the (red) cross of St. George (the English flag) dissecting the lower two thirds of the label with hand drawn black & white images of famous London landmarks in each of the four quarters. “Palmers” is clearly written in red across the top third of the label.

London Dry Gin.

40% (80 Proof).

$ - $$. Not available in the USA. We have been unable to identify a suitable supplier to ship to the USA. This Gin is available for shipping within the UK from ebuywines or Uvinum.

Uses 10 undisclosed botanicals.

Named after the Palmer family, who own the brand and the company who make this Gin.

On the nose is pine (juniper) with citrus (lemon) and almond. On the palate is juniper and citrus (lemon) with almonds and hints of spice and pepper. On the close the citrus fades with more spice, juniper “bite” and pepper on the long finish. 

This is a classic London Dry Gin with an interesting almond nuttiness to it. We have only sampled this neat with ice (and wouldn’t say this is a sipping Gin per se) and in a Gin and Tonic. In a G&T the Gin is somewhat muted but the key elements of juniper, lemon and faint hints of almonds can still be found. This is a reasonable every day Gin and is best used in mixed drinks. We would like to try this in a Martini, where we suspect it will fare fairly well.

Unknown.