Whitley Neill Black Cherry Gin

Two spices do the work of keeping this out of confectionery. Coriander seed and cassia bark work below the fruit instead of alongside it, and without them a gin built on ripe black cherry would drift straight toward a liqueur. Whitley Neill uses them to hold the line, at 43%.

Woody · Spicy · Fruity

Black cherry is a darker and denser fruit than the red kind, sweeter in aroma and deeper in the mouth, and the nose picks it up first of all: ripe, concentrated, slightly sweet. JuniperJuniperThe one compulsory botanical: gin must taste predominantly of juniper. Its "berry" is really a small conifer cone, resinous and peppery.Glossary arrives immediately behind, and the spice layer follows to keep the whole impression from turning candied.

On the palate the cherry opens rounded and full before giving way to juniper and the drier elements underneath, so the sequence runs fruit, then structure, rather than fruit all the way through. Angelica rootAngelicaThe root of a tall umbellifer, earthy and musky. After juniper and coriander it is the most common botanical: it binds the aromas and holds the finish.Glossary and orris rootOrris rootIris rhizome dried for years, then ground. Powdery and violet-like, it mainly works as a fixative that binds and lengthens the other aromas.Glossary contribute the mouthfeel and the frame. Cassia bark adds the gentle warmth that the aroma had already hinted at, and it is the element the finish leans on.

That finish is medium-long: cherry lingering, dry juniper answering it, a lightly woody and spiced aftertaste closing. The fruit is never in doubt and never alone.

A fruit-forward Gin and Tonic is the straightforward use. It also works in cocktails where a dark berry or stone-fruit depth adds something without covering the gin, which is a narrower category than fruit gins usually manage to belong to. Cherry is among the easiest flavours to overdo, since almost everyone has met it first as a sweet rather than as a fruit, and the recipe here is arranged to correct that expectation rather than to satisfy it. The spice arriving ahead of the sugar is what makes the difference audible when you actually drink the thing, rather than only where it is printed on the label.