Langtons No 1 Gin
Langtons No.1 Gin: a smooth Lake District London Dry made with slate-filtered Skiddaw spring water, Tuscan juniper, Lakeland oak bark, soft floral lift, citrus and a gentle spiced, silky finish.
Type
Country
Producer
Featured Flavours
Alcohol %
40%
Serving Size
- 25ml
Suggested with
In Cocktails
Langtons No.1 Gin pours exceptionally bright and crystal clear, a clarity the makers credit to the purity of the Lake District spring water used to bring it to strength. The nose is understated rather than loud: a soft, clean juniper leads, joined by a fresh floral lift, a touch of lemon and a gentle herbal note. There’s none of the heavy, oily pine that marks some London Dry gins, and that restraint is entirely deliberate. It’s an aroma that eases you in, setting up Langtons No.1 Gin as a gin built around balance and smoothness.
On the palate, the texture is what sets Langtons No.1 Gin apart. It is soft, silky and rounded, with a plush, almost velvety weight that glides across the tongue with very little burn for a 40% ABV spirit. The makers attribute that softness and a faint natural sweetness to the Skiddaw water itself, filtered over thousands of years through ancient black slate, and it gives the gin a smoothness rare enough that it’s often recommended for sipping neat over ice.
As the sip develops, the botanicals open up in clear, gentle layers. Tuscan juniper provides a fresh, piney backbone without overwhelming, citrus brings a bright, clean lift, and warmer notes of sweet spice and pine sap fill out the middle of the palate. Underneath it all sits the gin’s signature botanical, seasoned bark from ancient Lakeland oak, which adds a subtle woody depth and a soft, almost spice-edged warmth that gives Langtons No.1 Gin its quietly distinctive character.
The finish is clean, smooth and gently lingering, with juniper, a last trace of citrus and a whisper of warm spice fading slowly. Langtons No.1 Gin is wonderfully versatile: smooth enough to enjoy neat over a little ice with a slice of lime, and a superb base for a classic gin and tonic, ideally with a premium Indian tonic and a twist of lemon or lime. Its soft, rounded style also shines in a dry Martini, a Negroni or a Tom Collins, where its silky texture really comes through.
The story of Langtons No.1 Gin begins not with a still but with water. In the Lake District, beneath Skiddaw, the great slate mountain that rises above Keswick, lies a natural aquifer whose water has filtered slowly through black slate laid down some 450 million years ago. The discovery of that underground source, tapped by a borehole at Underskiddaw, was the spark for the whole project, and it’s the reason the gin is sometimes known as Langtons of Skiddaw. The founders felt water this pure deserved a spirit worthy of it.
Langtons No.1 Gin was created by two Lakelanders, Tim Moor and Nick Dymoke-Marr, who set out to make a gin that captured the Lake District in a glass while using as many local ingredients as they could. They were clear from the start about the style they wanted: not a heavy, oily, juniper-dominated gin, but something smooth, fresh and elegant. Tim Moor developed the recipe, choosing a top-quality Tuscan juniper for balance and adding an unusual local signature, seasoned bark from century-old oak trees with Lake District National Park heritage. The gin was launched at the end of 2012.
The bottle tells the same story of place. Designed with Allied Glass, it was inspired by a piece of slate found resting on the slopes of Skiddaw above the aquifer: its contours trace the profile of Skiddaw on the front face, its colour echoes the greens, blues and blacks of wet Lakeland slate, and its tapered rectangular shape nods to the gin flasks of the early 1700s. Recognition soon followed, with a silver medal in the premium gin category at the International Spirits Challenge in 2014 and silver at The Spirits Business Global Gin Masters in 2015, and Langtons No.1 Gin has since found its way onto bars well beyond the Lakes, including our own here in Cornwall.
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