London Distillery Company releases experimental TESTBED gins

New British artisan spirits producer, The London Distillery Company (TLDC), has launched its first gin, TESTBED – along with the three trial variants that preceded it.

TESTBED Gin from The London Distillery Company will be available from the end of September

TESTBED gin is a limited release that aims to show gin enthusiasts the impact of different botanicals on the final product. The company encourages consumers to give their feedback to help the fledgling gin evolve.

The gin takes its name from the site of the distillery – TESTBED 1 – an ex-dairy warehouse that is now a breeding ground for creativity in numerous forms, from art installations to gin distilleries, set in London’s alternative and quirky Battersea area.

The four gins all display very different characteristics, from the initial earthy, licorice-heavy flavours of No.1, the fiery green heat and bergamot of No.2, a foray into floral-led lavender notes in No. 3, then finally reaching a much more balanced end result that takes on elements of all three trial variants.

Darren Rook, found of TLDC, said: “We feel it’s important to make the recipe development process as transparent as possible by disclosing information other distillers tend not to. This first TESTBED1 release gives us an opportunity to do just that.

“Andrew MacLeod Smith, our distiller, spent the summer designing the gin with Jason Grizzanti, consulting master distiller at the New York Distilling Company and co-owner of the Black Dirt Distillery in Warwick, New York. The result is a collaboration of Old World and New World, a London Dry-style gin inspired by ‘New Western Dry’ principles. This allowed us to play with several botanicals not typically found in gin, such as lovage root, bilberry and lavender, and led us to coin a term that we feel best represents the product: ‘Anglo-American’.”

A pack of the four gins in 10cl bottles will be available from the end of the month with an RRP of £28.

TLDC is also gathering interest for its green credentials, which notably include planting two oak trees for every cask used, and plans to be solar powered  by 2013.