Top 10 house-made spirits brands

Whether a Victorian cream gin or a bespoke 34-year-old Scotch whisky, bars are striving to demonstrate their individuality by releasing creative house-made spirits.

Our list of the top 10 house-made spirits brands includes an Old Tom and cream gin

Due to the revived gin craze and relative ease in which the spirit can be made, the majority of this list is complied by homemade gin brands, which a smattering of whisky and rum inclusions.

The UK bar and cocktail scene in particular demonstrates the rapid growth of the house-made spirits trend, as a consumer desire for all that is homespun and authentic is driving creative bartenders to innovate like never before.

In a competitive marketplace, house-made spirits are also a way for bars to stand out from the crowd, as our recent feature on the trend demonstrates.

Recently, the Cambridge Distillery, a pioneer of the bespoke spirits trend, created a gin made from ants for a famed Danish restaurant, while one London bar opened exclusively serving a range of top-line spirits which had been created in-house.

Click through the following pages to see which others made our roundup of the top 10 house-made spirits. Have we missed off your favourite? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Bath Gin

Distilled by Thames Distillers in London and created by Peter Meacock, owner of The Canary Gin Bar in Bath, and mixologist Tim Wehelan, Bath Gin is made from 10 botanicals, including juniper, cassia, lemon peel, burnt orange peel, liquorice, cardamom, angelica, cubeb berries, wormwood and kaffir lime leaf. The spirit stands out even more with its label which bears the image of a winking Jane Austen. Bottles of the first batch – known as the Canary Edition – are now available for purchase behind the bar at The Canary Gin Bar, as well as 50 litres of “loose gin” which will be used to create an array of cocktails.

Anty Gin

Anty Gin is precisely what it says on the tin – it is a gin made using wood ants. Created by the “world’s first gin tailor” The Cambridge Distillery, run by master distiller Will Lowe (pictured), for The Nordic Food Lab in Denmark, the bottling is now served at Copenhagen’s Michelin-starred restaurant Noma. This is in addition to 512 gin recipes created by the distillery by the end of its second year in operation.

Mr Lyan spirits

Famed cocktail maverick Ryan Chetiyawardana opened a bar at the end of last year which broke the mould by serving only house-made spirits, called White Lyan. Mr Lyan spirits, named after Chetiyawardana’s moniker, include a rye and gin which feature in White Lyan’s range of innovative cocktails. The bar is also well-known for its exclusive use of pre-bottled cocktails, non-perishable ingredients and lack of ice.

Alimentum Gin

The Cambridge Distillery also created Alimentum Gin for the Michelin-starred restaurant of the same name. Continuing with the distillery’s creative streak, master distiller Will Lowe used lady grey tea and truffles among the botanicals used to distil the expression.

Dorchester Old Tom Gin

In June this year, iconic London hotel the Dorchester launched its own brand of Old Tom Gin in collaboration with the City of London Distillery. Available exclusively from The Dorchester hotel and its online shop, The Dorchester Old Tom Gin was created through a collaboration between the craft distillery and the hotel’s bar manager Giuliano Morandin, who first re-introduced the 18th Century style of gin to the UK market in 2006. It is created by using a selection of sweeter botanicals including: juniper, coriander, angelica root, orris root, cassia bark, cardamom and fresh lemon and orange peel.

Triumvirate and Eurydice

Eurydice is an agricole rum created by iconic US distillery St George Spirits in collaboration with San Francisco tiki bar Smuggler’s Cove. Just 125 bottles of the expression were created, and quickly sold out. The bar’s owner Martin Cate therefore teamed-up with House Spirits in Portland to launch Triumvirate and Triumvirate Final Edition, as well as Plantation Royal Blend – a custom blend of aged rums from Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados and Guyana.

Portobello Road No.171

First made by Jake Burger and Ged Feltham at Notting Hill’s Portobello Star, Portobello Road No.171 is a house gin made in the bar’s tiny pot still, called “Coppernicus”. The gin, a mix of nine botanicals including juniper, coriander, seeds, nutmeg and orange, was so popular it is now made by Thames Distillers and is commercially available in the Uk.

Cream Gin

Fluid Movement – the company behind London bars Purl, Worship Street Whistling Shop and Dach & Sons – released a Cream Gin in partnership with online retailer Master of Malt in December 2012. Modelled after the cream gins served in London’s gin palaces during the Victorian era, the Worship Street Whistling Shop Cream Gin is a staple ingredient in its namesake bar’s signature cocktail the Black Cat’s Martini.

City of London Gin

The City of London Dry Gin is produced by the City of London Distillery, a distillery-bar where spirits are created in the heart of the city’s historic square mile for the first time in 200 years. Most sales of the gin, which is made in a tiny copper still housed behind a glass wall, come from the underground bar. The gin is made using botanicals including: juniper, coriander seed, angelica root, liquorice root and fresh oranges, lemons and pink grapefruit. The distillery-bar is also currently developing a new gin, called The Square Mile, which is due to be released soon.

34 Scotch whisky

Just this week Mayfair restaurant 34 unveiled its namesake house Scotch whisky, created in collaboration with Speyside distillery Glenallachie. The limited edition 34-year-old expression has been aged in Sherry butts and carries notes of leather, dark fruit and caramel. Just 54 bottles have been made exclusively available for 34’s customers.