Best Gin For Negroni
There are plenty of great cocktails to choose from out there, each with their own refreshing ingredients and unique tastes, but most people would agree that the Negroni is one of the very best.
This Italian classic is a perfect balance of flavors, bitter but balanced out with certain ingredients to give it hints of sweetness and fruitiness.
In order to get its wonderful blend, a Negroni is made from three different ingredients. You’ll need one part of Campari, one part of vermouth rosso (which is also known as “sweet red vermouth”), and one part of gin.
All of these are important, but the gin is especially essential to nailing the taste of the drink.
As a result, you’ll want to make sure that you’re getting the very best type of gin for your Negroni.
However, with so many different brands of gin available on the market, it can often be difficult narrowing the list down and finding the ones that will work for your cocktail – rather than ruin it. So what can you do?
Well, you’ve come to the right place! We’ve done the work for you with our handy guide below, where you’ll find a list of the best gin for making a Negroni. With each pick, we’ve got information on the drink and what makes it so great. Read on!
Best Gin For Negroni
We’re starting our list off with a true classic and perhaps the best known gin there is – Beefeater Gin London Dry.
This drink has been popular for well over a century, ever since the brand’s creation in 1862, and it’s very easy to see why, thanks to its easy-drinking palate and taste. You can buy a bottle of it from Amazon here.
Why Should You Buy It?
One of the reasons that this is such a great choice for using in your Negroni cocktail is its sheer complexity and strength. Beefeater Gin has been made according to the same recipe ever since 1863.
You know what they say, if it isn’t broken, then don’t fix it! And their recipe and process is clearly not broken, because they’ve been using a much longer steeping process for making their gin than any other brand.
If you don’t know, the steeping process refers to the aromatic botanicals being soaked before distillation, which helps to extract the flavor from them.
Since Beefeater does their steeping process for much longer, it means that you get much stronger flavors than any other gin, which will really help your cocktail stand out. It also means that the flavors are more complex, giving you a richer drink.
Speaking of the aromatic botanicals, you can bet that Beefeater Gin is made with some of the best quality botanicals available. These are carefully picked out from all over the world, meaning that your Negroni will be of the highest quality.
However, this doesn’t mean that the gin is so refined that only gin experts can enjoy it. Thankfully, Beefeater Gin is perfectly easy-drinking, enjoyable to both beginners and enthusiasts with its great taste.
But what is that taste? Well, Beefeater has a wonderfully floral taste to it that will make your Negroni extra vibrant. On top of that, it has fruity aromas, which is again perfect for this type of cocktail, with just a hint of spice too.
Next on our list is The Botanist, a dry gin that is as floral as you would expect from its name. It’s a great choice for using when making a Negroni cocktail, with a complex finish and a great range of aromatics used in its production.
You can buy a bottle of it from Amazon here.
Why Should You Buy It?
The Botanist Gin hails from Scotland, more specifically the remote Isle of Islay. It’s the only dry gin that is produced there, making it extra special, and you can get a taste of its origin in every drink.
We’re mentioning its origins in detail because they are completely connected to the construction and taste of the gin itself.
Botanist Gin is made from 22 different botanicals that have been hand-foraged and picked locally to the Isle, meaning that you’re not going to get this unique combination with any other brand.
These botanicals include things like seeds, barks, berries, and peels, which all lend the drink their flavors and characteristics. In the list of 22 aromatics, 9 of them are classic gin aromatics.
For example, classics like cassia bark and orris root are used to make the drink so that it has the familiar, distinct notes that you’d expect from a dry gin.
It all results in a drink that has a mellow, rich taste that is sure to bring out the best in your Negroni. Meanwhile, it has a range of aromas to liven up your senses, such as orange and lemon peel.
It’s also a very smooth drink, with warmth as it hits the back of your palate, both characteristics that will suit any Negroni cocktail.
Another great Scottish gin, Hendrick’s Gin is an excellent drink to enjoy, and it’s just as great when used to make up one of the key parts of a Negroni cocktail.
It has a unique production process that makes it like no other gin, and it’s all the better for it. You can buy a bottle of it from Amazon here.
Why Should You Buy It?
When you use Hendrick’s Gin in your Negroni, you’re sure to get a brilliant range of vibrant and enjoyable flavors, which will really help to enhance your drink.
You’ll get hints of vanilla on the palate, as well as a bit of citrus edge in there too. In addition to those flavors, you’ll also pick up notes of oak and juniper.
Most unique of all, though, is the presence of cucumber on the palate. You’re unlikely to find this with any other gin, and yet the taste of cucumber is a surprisingly great choice for a gin.
Better yet, Hendrick’s uses only specially selected cucumbers that have been sourced from the best growers.
As for the aromas, you can expect to find a creamy variety that makes the Negroni extra enjoyable. You’ll naturally detect aromatic hints of the cucumber and some citrus, but also a bit of rose petal jelly too.
Hendrick’s production process is different to other brands, which is another reason why their gin is unique. They handcraft it in Scotland and distill the best quality neutral grain spirit through two differing kinds of still.
Both of these different stills have their own characteristics and styles, and the combination of them helps to create a gin that’s unlike any other. As a result, it’s a great pick for using in your Negroni!
Next on our list is Empress 1908 Gin, this drink is inspired by a famous hotel that’s hosted royalty and other famous faces.
As a result, it’s a drink fit for royalty, and its wonderful flavor and exotic ingredients helps to make it a great choice for using in a Negroni cocktail. You can buy a bottle of it from Amazon here.
Why Should You Buy It?
Empress 1908 Gin has won plenty of awards, which is a pretty good reason alone to buy it. It’s easy to see why it’s garnered such attention and awards, too, starting with its creation.
Surprisingly, the famous afternoon tea of the Empress hotel played a large part in the creation of this gin.
Those afternoon drinks were so beloved, with their carefully curated tea leaves, that the tea was paired with specially selected botanicals in order to make a gin that is truly unique.
Speaking of the botanicals, Empress Gin 1908 gets its distinct flavors from a carefully selected balance of 8 natural botanicals. One of these is the Fairmont Empress Tea itself, the famous tea from the hotel, which helps to give the gin a fruity and floral edge.
Another one of these botanicals is the Butterfly Pea Blossom, which helps to give the alcoholic drink a sense of warmth and some herbal earthiness.
Juniper, meanwhile, is also added, which is a gin staple with a hint of citrus and pine. Empress 1908 even includes some cinnamon bark in order to give the drink that famous note of spiciness and warmth that you get from cinnamon.
As a result, this carefully curated selection of botanicals helps to create a gin that is rich and complex in its flavor, which makes it a perfect choice for using in a Negroni.
Like Beefeater, this is another incredibly famous and respected choice that’s a great selection for making your Negroni with.
They use a special process in order to delicately extract all the very best elements from their botanicals, meaning that the drink is rich with flavor and aroma. You can buy a bottle of it from Amazon here.
Why Should You Buy It?
For a start, Bombay Sapphire is incredibly picky and precise about the ingredients that it uses, in order to give customers the very best gin that they can.
The company has an appointed Master of Botanicals whose job it is to source out the very best botanicals. This means that he travels all over the world, getting to know growers and handpicking only the very best ingredients to then use.
You can guarantee, too, that all of these botanicals are both sustainably sourced and natural.
A total of 10 botanicals are chosen for producing the gin, but then these ingredients are treated with the highest care. While some other gin makers will boil their botanicals, Bombay Sapphire vapor infuses them instead, because it’s a process that helps to more delicately extract all of the best elements from the botanicals.
This means that you get a drink that is flavorful and aromatic. The flavors are clean and fresh, with a subtle level of sweetness with hints of almond.
Additionally, you’ll also get pine-like notes of juniper in there too, as well as citrus notes and a somewhat spicy finish.
Next on our list is Nikka Coffey Gin, a great selection from Japan. As a result, you’ll be getting a drink that’s made with ingredients specific to Japan, making it a p[articularly unique blend.
This makes it a great choice for using in your Negroni, giving it an edge that you won’t get anywhere else. You can buy a bottle of it from Amazon here.
Why Should You Buy It?
Nikka Coffey Gin is well worth a purchase thanks to its complex flavors and aromas, and its range of ingredients that includes some Japanese ones.
It’s unlikely that you’ll often have a Japanese gin, which is a shame because their process and ingredients can make some of the best gins out there. Nikka Coffey is one of the best examples of that – let us explain why!
The gin is made up of 11 different botanicals, and these vary between typical ones that you’d expect from gin and ones that have been found specifically in Japan.
Whichever class they fit into, they’re all carefully selected in order to give the gin a rich flavor and a silky texture.
Typical gin botanicals used to make Nikka Coffey Gin include juniper berries, orange and lemon peels, coriander seeds, and others. However, green Japanese Sansho pepper is also included, in order to give the drink a finish with a hint of tanginess.
Additionally, a hint of apple is added too, helping to make the gin just a bit fruitier.
Meanwhile, the gin gets its aromatic qualities from a small collection of Japanese ingredients. These include Shequasar and Kabosu, and are all citruses.
This means that using Nikka Coffey Gin for your Negroni will give it a sense of Japanese infusion that few other gins will give you, full of Japanese flavors and aromas that are sure to make your cocktail more exciting.
We’re finishing our list with a big one! Tanqueray Gin is one of the most beloved and popular makes of gin there is, and there are plenty of reasons why.
It’s a drink that’s been made for over 180 years, making its continued popularity even more impressive, and it’s a great choice for using in a Negroni. You can buy a bottle of it from Amazon here.
Why Should You Buy It?
Tanqueray has been using the same recipe for years now and it’s clearly one constructed for perfection. They use 4 key botanicals, each distinct from each other, to make their gin.
These are angelica, licorice, juniper, and coriander. Each of these has their own characteristics that they bring to the drink, but Tanqueray combines them in a perfectly balanced way in order to get the best final product.
As a result, the final drink will give you a range of flavors. For example, you’ll get hints of cinnamon in there, the drink having a slightly warm edge that’s spicy but doesn’t overpower the whole thing.
Additionally, you’ll find notes of lemon zest in there, giving the gin a citrus edge, and pine-like juniper.
Buyers’ Guide
Across the 7 best gins we’ve just looked at in our list, you’ll have noticed various characteristics and features appearing over and over.
These are the sorts of things that you’ll want to look out for when making your buying decision, and we’ve rounded up below the key factors to keep in mind when doing so.
Botanical Ingredients
You’ll have noticed in our list that the botanical ingredients of each gin were incredibly important, giving each drink a unique and specific flavor.
There are certain standard botanicals that you can expect to find in gin, like orange and lemon peels and juniper berries, but gin brands will also add their own special botanical choices to make their drink stand out.
As a result, you’ll want to find a gin for your Negroni that uses botanicals that bring tastes that you know you find appealing.
Flavors
Another key part of picking a gin for your Negroni is the flavor that the gin offers. Every single gin will give drinkers its own unique blend of tastes and notes, and it’s best that you read up on what flavor a gin offers before you buy it.
Aromas
Similarly, the aromas of a gin are a big part of its impact, so you’ll want to buy a gin that offers subtle scents that improve your enjoyment of the drink.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Gin Really Influence A Negroni?
Since a Negroni includes other ingredients, you might wonder how much gin really affects it. The answer is a lot! The type of gin you use will determine heavily what the Negroni tastes like, so you need to get a gin you love.
Final Thoughts
There are countless gins available, but not all will suit a Negroni. Use our list to find the best!
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