Our datum, gin’s Prime Meridian. Always mighty fine.

Martini Verdict: once you’ve had Tanqueray TEN or TT Citrus Heart, good ol’ London Dry tastes a little rough in a martini — not bad at all, just a light face-slap of juniper on top of all the other good flavor. Think of it in a martini as a TEN martini with freshly-sharpened cutting blades.

Wonderful of course, pre-limed gin! For those who don’t already double-lime their GTs, this gets you there for free. But for those who already favored lots of lime in their GTs, this is not really a new taste. But will we stock in in our bar? Yes, especially since it’s already everywhere in the US.

Martini verdict: OK, not as good as expected. Not really sure why this didn’t work; sometimes tasting the sweetness is muted by the cold temps, as we certainly saw with the Old Tom.

Subtle but tasty Tanqueray orangeness. This one was an easy review: buy it, drink it, love it. And because it’s a softer fruit-forward unlike the explosive Blackcurrant Royale, it maintains its ginny nature for both GTs and martinis.

Martini verdict: very lovely!

It took circling back to this one after Bloomsbury and Old Tom to appreciate it’s fruit-forwardness, while lighter on the juniper. We tried to spice this one up with a drop of bitters, but we accidentally added 2 drops and lost all of the fruit-forwardness.

Martini verdict: absolutely shines, wonderful! The martini was apparently the actual target for TEN, and it shows. Simply brilliant.

Grapefruit as the fruity flavor — our mouths started watering when we even heard the notion. True to form, this one is wonderful taste-wise, though softer… perhaps that’s the difference we couldn’t catch between standard London Dry and No. TEN at the first tasting. That would make sense given what we found with Bloomsbury, where the softer stuff essentially makes taste-room for other added alcohols or splashes. Some of us actually loved this one more than Blackcurrant Royale.

Martini verdict: BEYOND STUNNING.

This was the early taste winner before our Citrus Heart arrived. Now THIS one might need a Fever Tree Elderflower tonic water! And this is definitely a UW tailgating gin, ‘cuz the resulting G&T is Husky purple. Strangely though, the wife didn’t like it; normally ladies go for the fruity stuff. She got hooked on the taste of the standard London Dry. Also, subsequent comparative tastings at higher gin concentrations found that Blackcurrant Royale needs a 4:1 or 5:1 tonic-to-gin ratio to stay enjoyable, where the others could go to 2:1.

Martini verdict: for the longest time, we didn’t even dare to try this because of the fear of flavor overload. Eventually we did, and it was actually pleasant, but… honestly, it just doesn’t taste like a real martini. It packed the same gin wallop, though!

A more floral taste than the standard London Dry, but… awfully soft. Still, kind of a fun one, more complex than just florals. It takes a few tries to appreciate it. Now, it’s one of our favorites for everyday GTs.

Martini verdict: shines much brighter than in a GT; a good one.

We did taste the grain-base of the gin (genever-like, and of course the sweetener (beet root sugar). But damn, this is a subtle-tasting one. We really had to pay attention for the tastes to come thru; it’s not supposed to be this difficult, is it? Honestly, there are much more interesting-tasting Old Toms out there; perhaps that’s why this one never went to production.

Martini verdict: we tried it (martinis had worked well with other softies) and hated it, but it was the second double-martini of the evening so we had to throw that data point out. On martini #2, we learned that Old Tom doesn’t like to be tasted cold! After 15 minutes of warming up, the beet root sugar flavor finally popped in. Still, it just wasn’t a fun martini to drink.

Not being European, we’d never tasted lovage before (pronounced “LUV-edge”), so we had no idea what to expect. It’s a popular ingredient in many European soup recipes, apparently. Lovage (aided by added nettles, chamomile, and cubeb berries along with the standard 4 Tanqueray botanicals) is a wonderfully different taste — not fruity ‘cuz it’s a veg, ya know — but it actually works very well in a London Dry gin, with the juniper dialed back some to allow it’s taste to poke thru. We didn’t notice the celery-like front end on the nose during the first tasting, but we did on the second one.

Martini verdict: T-Lovage is just as great in a martini as in a GT. We didn’t expect this, so what a wonderful surprise!

Bought one bottle, hated it. But then recently at one of our events, another AGTDA man introduced us to gin with pepper and cucumber and it was good. So, time to circle back on this one!

Martini verdict: glad we circled back, this one was very nice… this time, the peppery front-end seemed much quieter, and the botanicals and fruits were more prominent. The cucumber accent may not be needed, so next time we’ll go naked. Some say this drink gets better as it warms, but for us it seemed consistently enjoyable.

As we’d hoped, this smelled almost exactly like the standard London Dry. The taste is close, but a little bit more flowery… still very nice though, and the best non-alcoholic gin we’ve tried so far. But it needs a lime garnish to get it back to true London Dry taste in a GT.

Martini verdict: not applicable.