This was published 12 years ago
A tonic for true gin lovers
Having once fallen out of favour, London's flagship spirit is back in style.
By Willie Simpson
London dry gin was once the drink of choice in a great city that boasted scores of distilleries; by the turn of the 21st century, Beefeater was the sole London-based gin maker still in operation. When newcomer Sipsmith arrived on the scene in 2009, its copper-pot still was the first to be commissioned in London for more than 180 years.
''It was our dream to bring back gin as an art form in London where it had died out,'' a co-founder of Sipsmith, Sam Galsworthy, says. ''I'm showing Sipsmith gin to top-end bartenders in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, and we'll take it one bar at a time.''
Dream achieved ... Sam Galsworthy and his Sipsmith co-founders want to bring gin back as an art form.Credit: Jon Reid
Galsworthy previously worked for London-based Fuller's Brewery for 10 years, mainly in the US.
''While I was there, I saw an intense groundswell of artisan distilleries,'' he says. ''It's romantic and has the concept of provenance, and the overall quality of small-scale stuff is way above what's coming out of the bigger distilling companies.''
He also saw it as part of a general trend: ''Consumers are increasingly enjoying artisan, craft, boutique or whatever is in their mind.''
Back in London, he hooked up with best mate Fairfax Hall, who was working for global drinks company Diageo. ''We thought it would be great to start something similar in London and, of course, it had to be gin,'' Galsworthy says.
The pair quit their jobs, found a like-minded distiller in Jared Brown, and spent two years planning their business. They commissioned a new still from Christian Carl, Germany's oldest distillery manufacturer, and christened it Prudence in reference to former British prime minister Gordon Brown's famous watchword for economic restraint.
''And it was serendipity that Gordon Brown changed the law for small distillers,'' Galsworthy says, ''which had a draconian minimum wash length [of 3000 litres].''
With a modest 300-litre output, Prudence is capable of producing 350 bottles a day. ''She's currently doing that six days a week, so Prudence needs a bigger sister,'' Galsworthy says.
While vodka production is a sideline, Sipsmith dry gin is the flagship of the enterprise.
''There's myriad new gins coming into the UK market using all manner of botanicals and flavourings which distillers of old would never have used,'' Galsworthy says. ''Our recipe had to reflect the London gins of old.''
Ten botanicals are used - Bulgarian juniper, coriander seed, orris root, liquorice root, angelica root, almond powder, Seville orange and lemon peel, cassia and cinnamon bark. ''Our signature mixed drink with Sipsmith is a good old London gin and tonic or in a Martini where I can taste the heartbeat of the gin,'' he says.
While searching around for a name for their budding enterprise, he met an acquaintance who was a silversmith. ''He suggested that just as he shapes and polishes silver into a finished piece of jewellery, we were going to take off heads and tails [in the distilling process], so we were 'smiths' of sorts,'' he says.
So the name Sipsmith was born.
By slightly eerie coincidence, I recognised the Hammersmith address on the Sipsmith label because it was previously the office of the late English beer writer, Michael Jackson. ''I knew Michael from my time with Fuller's,'' Galsworthy says, ''so it was an interesting connection when we found the space was available.''
I'm sure the renowned drinks writer would have thoroughly approved of the current use of his former writing den.
Sipsmith is on sale at Awkward Bar, Darlinghurst; Porteno, Surry Hills; Stitch Bar, city; The Backroom, Potts Point.
Tasting notes
SIPSMITH LONDON DRY GIN (41.6 per cent)
Clear; leaves oily tears on side of the glass. Aroma: hints of lemon blossom and zest; delicate scents of juniper berry and spice come through later. Palate: slightly oily mouth-feel; mid-palate suggests lemon tart dusted with cinnamon around a backbone of perfumed juniper berry; delicately complex finish has aniseed and white pepper notes. Overall: elegant, feminine dry gin that is both restrained and well integrated, and loves tonic water.