Beefeater Peach & Raspberry Gin

The name promises peach and raspberry, and the base underneath is a classical dry ginDry ginGin with no perceptible sweetness: in the European Union, the word "dry" allows at most 0.1 g of sugar per litre.GlossarySee Dry gin gins that promises neither. That is the whole arrangement: natural peach and raspberry flavours laid over the Beefeater botanical bill rather than replacing it, at 37.5%, the lowest strength the category permits.

Floral · Fruity

The two fruits are chosen to work against each other. Peach is soft, round and floral, with a sweetness that is more perfume than sugar; raspberry is sharp, acidic and clearly tart, and it alone stops the peach from turning into syrup. Set together they cover a wider span than either would alone, and the balance the producer is after is exactly that tension. Beneath them the dry structure keeps working: juniperJuniperThe one compulsory botanical: gin must taste predominantly of juniper. Its "berry" is really a small conifer cone, resinous and peppery.Glossary holds the frame, lemon peel and orange peel cut across the fruit, coriander seed brings warm spice, angelica in root and seed lays the dry earth, almond gives a marzipan weight that suits stone fruit particularly well, and liquorice and orris root extend the close.

The nose is ripe peach and raspberry over citrus peel and a soft juniper. The palate is juicy, rounded and fruit-forward, peach sweetness first and raspberry acidity arriving to correct it, with the gin botanicals audible underneath rather than buried.

At this strength the bottle belongs in a long glass. Pink grapefruit tonic is the producer's recommendation and it is a good one, since grapefruit bitterness pulls against the peach in the same direction the raspberry does. Ice heavily, garnish with whole fruit rather than a peel, and avoid anything sweetened: it would collapse the only tension the recipe has. Flavoured ginFlavoured ginGin with flavourings, often fruity, added after distillation. It may be coloured and lightly sweetened.GlossarySee Flavoured gin gins is an easy category to make badly; keeping the dry base audible underneath is what separates the attempts.