Le Tribute Dry Gin

About this bottle

Every so often, you come across gins with incredibly beautiful product design, or simply wonderful label artwork. Quite often, that makes me a little more cautious, perhaps unfairly. Why put sooo much more into the design than others do? Are they trying to distract from the actual product? And that's coming from someone trained in design. But it isn't just me. Quite a few people have agreed that they didn't entirely trust one bottle or another. Whatever the case, it's ultimately what's inside that matters in a gin.

I first bought this gin in early 2019, even though the design had won me over as soon as it appeared. Beautiful, stylish, everything was right. Then I didn't get round to giving it my attention, as happens with so many bottles I buy intending to review them. Let's change that now. Allow me to introduce Le Tribute Gin & Tonic.

More about Le Tribute Gin

The gin is made by the MG Destilerias distillery in Spain, a family business with five generations of distilling expertise on its CV.

1835 saw the founding of the Giró family's company. They began making syrups and horchata, a sweet drink made from rice, almonds, milk and a few spices.

1880 marked the start of distilling spirits and making liqueurs.

1923 saw carbonated drinks added to the range.

1940 brought the distillery's first London gin, made with juniper grown and harvested on its own land.

1982 brought a new gin that, by their own account, was a step up in quality: Master's Gin.

2010 — you know Gin Mare? That's when they launched it, followed in …

2017 … by Le Tribute Gin. That's the very compact family history.

1993 is another interesting date: that's when they expanded to Cuba and turned to importing and exporting fine food and drink. Whisky and mezcal have also been part of the range since then. Watch out: the mezcal looks almost identical to the gin, only in a pink bottle.

How Le Tribute Gin is made

The base is a wheat and barley spirit. First, the ingredients are macerated in it. Lemons, oranges and the various types of grapefruit each get their own alcohol bath and are distilled separately, creating individual distillates. Lemongrass is an exception: it's distilled with water, because development showed that this extracted the aromas much better than an alcohol base.

The individual distillates are then blended into the final gin and reduced to a drinking or bottling strength of 43% ABV. It's then bottled in those beautiful bottles.

How Le Tribute Gin tastes

My first try with this gin involved some lousy, warm tonic and an ice cube that didn't deserve the name. You could say the experience was well below par. But I give every gin a second chance, especially after a start like that. Sometimes you have days when things just don't come together.

With my own bottle, I had more control. Apparently, you can go quite wrong with certain tonics here, so I made my first test — actually my second — with the brand's own tonic. Everything nicely chilled. Good ice … bam. So that's how it's meant to be. The tonic doesn't just look as good as the gin; it's a very good match in flavour too. I expected nothing less.

Juniper is there, but the exciting thing about this gin is the many facets of its citrus fruits. I've never experienced so much variety in a gin, provided the tonic doesn't flatten it. You'd be hard-pressed to make a gin and tonic with more citrus freshness as easily as you can with these two products.

On the nose

The gin isn't actually that intense on the nose. Lots of citrus, but it doesn't knock you over. Lemon and grapefruit lead for me. Juniper is noticeable, and you can sense the 43% alcohol too. A gentle zing for the nose overall. Punchy and fresh.

Taste

Unsurprisingly, citrus fruits lead in the flavour too. There's citrus in every corner: light, fresh-seeming aromas come and go. Although lemon and grapefruit are the first you taste, the other citrus fruits also appear and disappear. Almost as though they're dancing past in a procession, each announcing its presence. Lime provides a lovely base and adds depth. It does have a certain spiciness of its own, after all. After a moment, juniper rises to the surface and makes itself known. It takes its place with a lovely kick and spreads out.

Finish and aftertaste

The flavour lingers for a moderate time, with a warm, sweet note overlaid by a spicier, hotter one. But the citrus stays and almost refuses to leave. No surprise there.

Like plenty of others, I was fooled by the name Le Tribute Gin and thought I had a French product in front of me. Not at all: welcome to Spain. And just as the country was a surprise, an intense aroma with a richly varied citrus palette arrived on the taste buds. A gin for perfect summer gin and tonics.