New London distillery to launch gin

A new craft distillery in Battersea, London is to launch its first product. 

The London Distillery Company is to launch four gins under its experimental drinks line Testbed. The name comes from the site of the distillery - Testbed 1 - a former dairy warehouse turned creative arts space, established by Kevin Cassandro and architect Will Alsop in Battersea, London in 2010.

The London Distillery Company is to commence whisky production in November 2012.  It is the first whisky distillery to be built in London for over 100 years, according to the company, and it cost £258k with £99k from online funding hub Crowdcube. 

Darren Rook, founder of company said of the gins: “The word ‘testbed’ means a platform for experimentation, which aligns with elements of our own philosophy regarding product innovation and challenging our own preconceptions about what works and what doesn’t.  We also feel it’s important to make the recipe development process as transparent as possible by disclosing information other distillers tend not to. This first Testbed 1 release gives us an opportunity to do just that.

“Andrew MacLeod Smith, our distiller, spent the summer designing the gin with Jason Grizzanti, consulting master distiller at the New York Distilling Company and co-owner of the Black Dirt Distillery in Warwick, New York.  The result is a collaboration of Old World and New World, a London Dry style gin inspired by New Western Dry principles. This allowed us to play with several botanicals not typically found in gin, such as lovage root, bilberry and lavender, and led us to coin a term that we feel best represents the product: ‘Anglo-American’.” 

The four recipes developed for the first Testbed offering will be available at the end of the month as a set of four 10cl bottles at £28 (RRP).  The idea is that consumers can track the evolution of the product during development and note the effects of the various botanicals on the spirit. Feedback can be sent directly to Rook at darren@thelondondistillerycompany.com.

Here are the four gin recipes:

1.1

Juniper Berries
Coriander Seeds
Bilberries
Pink Grapefruit Peel
Angelica Root
Earl Grey Tea

1.2
Juniper Berries
Coriander Seeds
Bilberries
Pink Grapefruit Peel
Lovage root
Liquorice root
Bergamot oil

1.3
Juniper Berries
Coriander Seeds
Bilberries
Pink Grapefruit Peel
Lovage root
Angelica Root
Liquorice root
Bergamot oil
Lavender flowers

1.4
Juniper Berries
Coriander Seeds
Bilberries
Pink Grapefruit Peel
Lovage root
Angelica Root
Liquorice root
Bergamot oil
Lavender flowers
(Same as 1.3 but different quantities)