Portobello Road No. 171 Gin, London Dry Gin Traditionally Made Using 9 Botanicals, Premium Craft Spirit, 70cl Bottle

Product Information

It’s been pivotal. Approximately 50% of the brand’s growth has come from the premium on-trade sector. Ged Feltham founder of Leelex restaurant group and Portobello Road Gin (www.neilhallphotography.com) We left with our bottles of gin, as well as another bottle of Portobello Road No.171 each- awesome!

Portobello Road Gin is still run by a small group of directors but we’re all incredibly passionate about our brand, the product and our loyal customers. It’s this unwavering passion that motivates us to work long hours and to keep on innovating. We’ve released a few limited edition blends which allow us to experiment with new and interesting botanicals and flavours in addition to our signature 171 blend. Portobello Road No. 171 Gin reads like a photograph of craft gin distilling around the time it was released. Heavy handed with spice, it’s your quintessential spice forward gin.Of all the gins out there, none hit the sweet spot between classic gin flavour and moreish complexity quite like No. 3. If you have room for just one gin on your shelf, we’d make it this one. It’s exhausting writing about it, must make exhausting reading, and frankly, we’re not sure how Jake does it. It’s never ending, and yet it doesn’t faze Burger, he loves it all. Portobello Road Gin has an impressive set of credentials. The brand was created by the founders of The Ginstitute. Once just a museum, now one of the world’s premier gin educational attractions— naturally, they needed to have a gin.

The gin itself is designed in the London Dry Style. It features nine botanicals distilled on a base of wheat. The brand launched in 2011. Tasting Notes When Jake roamed, it was heady time for Leeds, it could offer one of the best nights out in the country, with Burger rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mal Evans and Roger Needham at Mojo, Skippy Jupp and Declan McGurk of the successful Arc Inspirations and Si Ord with bars like Sandinista. But once established, Leelex and Jake journeyed south to conquer the big smoke, first opening Portobello Star on Portobello Road, before The Distillery at the end of 2016. When we then went into the distillery to continue our experience and then to our cosy little gin making area, it just got better & better.

Re-order Custom Gin Recipe

Are there any particular champions of the brand within the on-trade/ bars/ people that you work with? Gin has always been an immensely popular spirit in the UK. Although the spirit was invented in The Netherlands, we Brits have adopted it as our own national spirit. Gin first became popular in the 17th century with the infamous gin-craze that gripped the nation. This era of drunken debauchery was of course portrayed in William Hogarth’s famous ‘Gin Lane’ painting. This negative perception of gin did hinder the spirit’s growth until around the 1900s.

But it has taken all elements combined to help grow the gin, in what is becoming an increasingly challenging cateogry. Jake has one eye on that, but is positive about gin’s future. Made by historic London wine merchants Berry Bros. & Rudd, the six-botanical spirit took two years to develop with Dr David Clutton – a man who holds a PhD in gin (yep, that exists). It was worth the effort. Our Gin Instructor was Carmen, she was amazing! 🌟 Her knowledge of the history of gin throughout the centuries & humour in telling stories & making everyone feel included was second to none! It’s fascinating to see how trends manifest in gin. Especially when reviewing a gin form the early Gin Renaissance that we’ve not had in for review until now. For example, we were the first spirits brand to create a gin using British asparagus which was the first of our annual limited edition Director’s Cut gins and was created by founder Paul Lane. We’ll be announcing details of our second Director’s Cut very soon which will be an extra special edition by Ged Feltham to celebrate our fifth anniversary.

Consider this similar product...

That being said, consumer tastes have changed— dramatically. Floral and herbal facets are popular and widely sought after. While Portobello Road Gin does some nice things with its nutmeg, cassia, coriander and licorice botanicals— I can’t help but feel that it tastes a bit dated.