Christian Drouin Le Gin 700ml

Le Gin de Christian Drouin comes from the Christian Drouin house in Normandy, France, a family long celebrated for its Calvados. Guillaume Drouin, the third generation to lead the company, trained as an oenologist and agronomist before joining the family business in 2004. After years spent working alongside his father on aging Calvados, his curiosity about aroma and blending eventually led him to a new project entirely, a gin built from the same orchards that supply the family's apple brandy.

The gin's base spirit comes from over thirty varieties of cider apple, spanning bitter, bittersweet, sweet, and sharp styles, distilled much as Calvados would be. Alongside juniper, Guillaume selected eight botanicals drawn largely from the aromatic world of premium Calvados: lemon, ginger, rose, cardamom, cinnamon, vanilla, and almond. Each botanical is macerated and distilled completely separately, a labor-intensive process that limits production to small batches, since the proportions must be adjusted and reblended by hand with every run to find the right balance between the apple base and the botanicals.

Rose and lemon bring a light, delicate lift to the nose, while ginger, vanilla, cinnamon, and almond build a smooth, spiced body underneath. Cardamom adds roundness and enhances the fruit character running through the middle of the gin. Juniper and apple play off each other throughout, one contributing crisp, high notes and the other a heavier, softer fruitiness, giving the gin a structure closer to a fine spirit blend than a typical botanical-forward London Dry.