Flavor Profile
A love letter from two gin fans to the city of Dublin, Dublin City Gin adds Dublin Rhubarb [didn’t know this was a thing] along with some traditional gin botanicals to create a gin that is about the place first, but hopes to one day be distilled in the place with a Dublin distillery part of the long term plan.
Tasting Notes
Aroma: Lovely, juniper forward nose, with dry, slightly spicy, [smells perhaps like Moroccan] coriander, angelica, and pine notes with grapefruit flourish along the edges. Exceptional and bright, I love this nose, though you do get slight hints of linalool beneath the surface. Perhaps lavender, perhaps the aforementioned rhubarb. The top notes carry the juniper, but this coriander really makes up the body of it, especially as it warms. It becomes quite coriander forward as it sits.
Flavor: Pine at first, menthol hued spruce, and Pomelo flesh. Bright white grapefruit towards the back half of the flavor. Coriander on the finish, with a really dry peppery note, as if cracked pepper was tasted, but it lacked the mentholated coolness of the pepper. But not quite cubeb though either.
Finish: Grains of paradise and slightly dry but not astringent.
Overall
Does it taste like Dublin? I’m not quite sure. But is Dublin City Gin a good gin? I think so. While it doesn’t break new boundaries, the subtlety within the realms of tradition warrants a closer look, even as it straddles the line between classic and contemporary.