The other half of the christmas present from my sister was a hamper of gins. Last night we opened the largest of the bottles (still only 40cl). It’s a gin called Masons and it’s from somewhere in Yorkshire.

It’s a London Gin made in small copper stills. When I first opened it there was a massive WOOSH of juniper – which as someone who likes their gin to taste like gin, I was excited by. 50ml of it, a 100ml of Fever Tree Tonic a wedge of lime and a huge amount of ice later we had ourselves some gin and tonics. First impression: Nom.

While it smelled of juniper – it was a much spicier gin to taste. The predominant flavour (to the point that I could actually identify it) was allspice. It was a lovely warm gin, that’d probably be amazing in one of those warm GnT’s we had at the Sipsmith distillery. The distillery themselves suggest garnishing with peppercorns and grapefruit zest. For once, I actually see that as potentially being a thing, rather than the usual ‘oh! we need a gimmicky garnish’ that seems to be how a lot of gins are trying to differentiate themselves at the moment.

We finished the bottle.