Inspired by, and named after, the visionary engineer Ralph Dodd, who established the ill-fated London Distillery Company in 1807 to provide the public with ‘Genuine British Spirits’, this trailblazing small-batch Gin is a beautifully executed contemporary take on the classic London Dry.

The London Distillery Company was re-established in Battersea by Darren Rook in 2013 and was soon to become London’s first licensed whisky distillery since Lea Valley closed its doors in 1910. Rook, and fellow distiller, Andrew Macleod Smith (see Sweetdram) devised one of London’s first new-wave craft Gins, using principles including the sourcing of organic ingredients (local wherever possible) and using unpasteurized honey from local hives.

Dodd’s powerful, vibrant personality stems from the unique marriage of two separate distillations; the bulk of the botanicals are distilled in a traditional alembic copper still, while the distillation of the more delicate botanicals (such as raspberry leaf) takes place in a small, cold vacuum still. The two spirits are blended for several weeks before bottling. The attention to detail here extends to exquisite individually numbered, letterpress labels, which are printed on an old Heidelberg press and attached to each bottle by hand. In January 2020, LDC was purchased by the British Honey Company of Aylesbury, which has pledged to remain faithful to Dodd’s original organic recipe and traditional fabrication.