No.3 Gin

BERRY BROS. & RUDD ARE BRITAIN’S OLDEST WINE AND SPIRIT MERCHANT, ESTABLISHED IN THE 17TH CENTURY. THEIR FLAGSHIP STORE HAS BEEN LOCATED AT NO. 3 ST JAMES’S STREET, LONDON SINCE 1698 WHEN IT WAS FOUNDED BY THE WIDOW BOURNE.

A SUPPLIER TO THE ROYAL FAMILY since the reign of King George III, historic customers have included Lord Byron, William Pitt the Younger and the Aga Khan. Today members of the Berry and Rudd families continue to own and manage the family-run wine and spirits merchant.

The key emblazoned on the front of the No.3 bottle is a replica of the key to the parlour at No.3 where the walls are hung with caricatures of notable families who had been buying wine or spirits from them for over 100 years; a symbol of the trust between Berry Bros. & Rudd and their customers.

No.3 Gin was developed with two main aims: to make the best gin for a dry martini, and in a market with an ever-growing range of ‘neo-gins’, to get back to classic, London Dry style gin, with juniper at its heart.

Over the course of a year, a team led by Dr David Clutton (the only man in the world with a PhD in gin) and including the likes of Jared Brown; Anastatia Miller; Dave Broom: Geraldine Coates; Patience Gould; Nick Wykes; Marcin Miller: plus 16 leading people from the London bar profession worked on the recipe. The gin was altered 12 times before they were satisfied with the result.

No.3 is crafted from only six botanicals, expertly balanced and distilled to the recipe in traditional copper-pot stills.

The botanical infusion of No.3 is a process of maceration. The chosen botanicals (Juniper, sweet orange peel, grapefruit peel, cardamom pods, coriander seeds and angelica root) are soaked in diluted pure grain alcohol overnight before being redistilled, filtered further and diluted to the bottling strength of 46% ABV.

With the range of gin brands exploding at the moment, the emergence of more and more ‘new world’ gins, gins that utilise less-traditional botanicals such as cucumber, wattle seed and olives, has become clear. There has also been a shift away from a prominent juniper characteristic and towards the inclusion of 10+ botanicals.

With one of the aims behind the development of No.3 being to get back to classic London Dry Gin, the simple botanical mix of three fruits (juniper berries, orange peel, grapefruit peel) and three spices (coriander seed, angelica root, cardamom pods) with juniper at the heart is key; the result is a gin that makes the perfect dry martini and is therefore also perfect for the classic gin cocktails.

No.3 has been the recipient of more than 35 awards since its release in 2010, as well as being awarded top honours by the International Spirits Challenge with a Trophy in 2012, 2013 and 2015. ❧