Bombay Gin 750ml

Bombay Original traces its recipe to 1761, when a young Thomas Dakin built a distillery on Bridge Street in Warrington, England, and began producing what he called Warrington Dry Gin. Nearly two centuries later, American entrepreneur Allan Subin rediscovered that historic recipe and used it as the basis for Bombay Dry Gin, launching it in the United States in 1960 under the name that would eventually become Bombay Original. The gin was contract distilled by G&J Greenall, and its success paved the way for the brand's better known descendant, Bombay Sapphire, which was developed roughly three decades later using two additional botanicals layered onto the same original formula.

The gin is built from eight botanicals, juniper berries, coriander seed, liquorice root, almonds, lemon peel, cassia bark, orris root, and angelica root, sourced from as far afield as Spain, China, Italy, and West Africa. True to the Bombay method, the botanicals are never boiled directly in the spirit. Instead they are vapor infused, suspended in baskets above the still so that alcohol vapor passes gently through them, drawing out their aromatics without the harsher, more bitter notes that direct maceration can introduce. The finished gin is bottled at 40 percent alcohol by volume, slightly lower proof and simpler in composition than its Sapphire sibling.

The nose is earthy and herbal, with juniper stepping forward alongside citrus and a gentle almond sweetness. On the palate the gin turns dry and balanced, coriander and angelica lending a spiced, rooty depth before a clean, classic finish. It makes a dependable Gin and Tonic and works equally well shaken into a Gin Fizz.