In a year packed with gin releases, Sydney distillery Archie Rose has cut through the noise in more senses than one with a its new Distiller’s Strength, an overproof gin designed to shine in mixed drinks and cocktails.
“We upped the botanicals in the gin so they’d be more pronounced and pack a punch in G&T or Negroni,” says Archie Rose manager Harriet Leigh. “But I’ve also enjoyed it in a Last Word, a Southside and a Tom Collins. I believe in thorough research.”
Bottled at a hair over 52 per cent ABV, Distiller’s Strength is a party starter. But it’s not just the presence of more alcohol giving its potency – Archie Rose’s distillers dialled up botanical notes of pears, honey and juniper in the gin to declare their presence in a mixed drink more emphatically.
It is, in Leigh’s words, “a strong, juniper-forward gin with a defined floral characteristic that is very hard to capture in distillation for reasons that may well bore you if I go into them”.
We road-tested it with tonic using Leigh’s suggested 1:3 ratio with a lemon garnish (she gets down with a half-gin, half-tonic ratio too), and the verdict was “highly flavoursome”.
We also seized on the tasting to try out the new hand-blown gin glass from Denver & Liely, the Melbourne design firm known for its whisky glasses. The gin line, which hits the market in October, features a funnel (their word) fine-tuned for botanicals to flourish.
We also believe in thorough research, so we’ll be trialling the glass with a few other gins, but we’re confident that the Distiller’s Strength Archie Rose has the power to deliver a floral wallop outside controlled conditions, whether it be in a regular tumbler or a rusty bucket.
Keen for a drink? Try our eight excellent gin cocktails.
Distiller’s Strength Gin is available from 18 September online and at Archie Rose’s distillery bar in Rosebery, Sydney, with other retailers in the works. RRP $99 for 700ml. Denver & Liely’s gin glass will be available online in October, $55.
archierose.com.au; denverandliely.com
