Special Reserve 101

Created to mark our 10th Birthday, our new limited edition bottling, Special Reserve 101 is the culmination of ten years of experiments in gin distilling. It is our attempt to make an innovative gin, pushing the envelope in every way we can, whilst remaining within the boundaries laid out in the London Dry Gin regulations. 

It is a gin that we're incredibly proud of, a gin for gin lovers, still Portobello but Portobello with bells on... just in time for Christmas.

Made with rich British potato spirit as a base, we reverse age (okay we've made that term up) the spirit, resting it in oak before distillation, essentially using oak as a botanical so it retains all that rich, delicious flavour, but no colour. We then steep our classic London Dry botanicals - however with 50% more juniper - for 48 hours instead of 24, resulting in a very 'ginny gin' (for want of a better word). 

And then we cut the spirit with Vichy Catalan water, the world's most mineral rich water, creating an incredibly unique spirit, and bottle it at 50.5% ABV (known in the States as 101 Proof, and the strength at which Jake prefers his liquor). 

The result is a full flavoured spirit, with a depth of character and texture to satisfy those that like their gin on the ginny side, we hope you enjoy it, and use it to raise a glass to our first decade of distilling!

Tasting Notes: 

Nose: Intense Juniper but still with that Portobello DNA running through it - like all our products do - with distinct notes of citrus and winter spice on the nose, and perhaps the gentlest suggestion of flowers and perfume. 

Palate: The creaminess and the weight are immediately apparent, it coats the mouth and sticks to the tongue, the Juniper dominates at first but gives way to the lemon, orange and eventually to the festive flavour of cassia and nutmeg  

Finish: As one might expect at 50.5% it is distinctly, erm noticable, as it goes down, warming the cockles of the heart like a good cast strength whiskey does, the long warmth in the chest is not the only thing that lingers though, the juniper and the spice still being abundantly apparent even thirty/forty/fifty seconds after the initial sip…. 

How should it be drunk? 

It's so full and intense that it's going to make its presence felt in any mixed drink or cocktail, but like any great gin it is most at home in a Martini.