The best gins for G&Ts, martinis and negronis, from our taste test of 65

It’s party season; better make sure the bar cart is fully stocked before friends and family descend. Gin forms the basis of many well-known cocktails, including the negroni, French 75, bramble, gimlet and – 2025’s favourite – the martini. Selecting a decent bottle – or two – will give your usual G&T an upgrade and ensure your Christmas drinks party will be one to remember.

But what is gin? Essentially, it’s a distilled alcohol made from a neutral spirit (usually derived from grain), flavoured with juniper berries and bottled at 37.5% ABV minimum. So, distillers have relative freedom to play around with ingredients, infusions and distillation methods – creating a huge range of gin styles but making it tricky to pick out the right bottle for you.

As a long-term member of the mother’s ruin fanclub – and having written about drinks for almost a decade – I have collected and tried hundreds of different gins. Ahead of Christmas, I revisited my home-bar favourites as well as trying many new-to-me gins to bring you this selection of delicious and interesting gins for your drinking delectation. Overall, I considered 65 gins, testing each one for aroma, before sipping it straight and drinking it in a gin and tonic with ice and lemon. If the brand suggested a specific serve, I tried that too.

From standout gins perfect for a (generous!) gift to award-winning classic brands and gin with a Christmassy twist, I’ve compiled this list of brilliant bottles to see you through the festive season.

The best gins in 2025

Best all-round gin

East London Liquor Co gin, 70cl

This is a gin I turn to time and time again – a good value classic but with a bit of an edge. It’s a London dry, but with more of all the flavours you expect: more sharp lemony citrus, more piney juniper, more cardamom and angelica root spice. This characterful gin works in any cocktail or G&T where you want to really be able to taste the gin; so less of the gin fizz, more a negroni. The vodka is great too.

Best Indian gin

Terai India dry gin, 75cl

Indian gin is an exciting category, and this gin, made in the London-dry style by a fourth-generation Indian distiller, is a solid pick. Made in Rajasthan using botanicals sourced from Delhi’s Khari Baoli – one of the largest spice markets in the world – this is a house-made rice grain spirit, so it has a softer, milder base than usual. The base spirit is infused with 11 botanicals, including tulsi (holy basil), fennel, coriander and – interestingly – almonds. The result is slightly sweet, creamy and still piney, green and aromatic, but tastes distinctly Indian. I’d go for a lush, limey gimlet with this one.

Best coastal gin

Bullards Coastal gin, 70cl

From Norwich comes this clean, citrussy gin filled with the saline seaside flavours of the Norfolk coast. Infused with hand-foraged sea purslane, marsh samphire and Douglas fir, this is a bracing, salty joy to drink in a gin and tonic. Bullards suggests serving with blackberries and a twist of fresh lime, but a sprig of samphire is even better, in my opinion. This gin edged ahead thanks to its innovative eco-pouch format: buy a bottle for life and top up with more affordable pouches of gin, made from sugarcane, to reduce its carbon footprint – why don’t more brands do this? The brand’s Strawberry & Black Pepper gin is also wonderful with only a touch of sweetness, a sensible 40% ABV and a hefty thwack of warming black pepper.

Best pink gin

That Boutique-y Gin Company Proper Pink gin, 50cl

The definition of pink gin has become a little muddled in recent years. Traditionally, it refers to a navy-strength gin with added Angostura bitters (which gives the pink hue), but it’s evolved to include any pink-coloured gin – whether that’s due to colouring, berry or rhubarb flavours, or spangly mermaids. Not in my book – or That Boutique-y Gin Company’s. Its Proper Pink gin is a throwback to the 18th century: a 46% concoction of gin, lemon and vacuum-distilled Angostura, finished with even more Angostura. This is sophisticated stuff, best enjoyed in a martini with a twist.

Best Old Tom gin

Hernö Old Tom gin, 50cl

Sweden’s award-winning gin distillery Hernö was named gin producer of the year in 2025 and 2024 at the prestigious International Spirits Challenge. Hernö’s Juniper Cask gin (the first gin to be matured in juniper wood) and Six Rivers gin (with an aroma of verdant Icelandic moss) are both standout – but the brand’s Old Tom gin is a shining example of this category. Old Tom gins are named after the black cat symbol that signalled an 18th-century illegal distillery, and are sweeter than London dry, with sugar traditionally added to offset the harsher base spirit used in bootleg gin. The style proved popular, and Hernö’s naturally sweet botanicals – including vanilla, honey, lingonberries and generous amounts of almondy meadowsweet – give it a fresh update. It’s sweet and smooth enough for sipping, or perfectly at home in a Tom Collins.

Best London dry gin

Gordon’s London dry gin, 1l

When you want a classic gin and tonic with no surprises or messing around, it’s hard to beat the refreshing taste of Gordon’s and tonic. It’s deservedly the category leader in gin, and the one many top bartenders reach for when mixing a G&T (they also invariably recommend Schweppes tonic – and never slimline). Made since 1769, its juniper-forward recipe is crisp, citrussy and the quintessential example of a London dry gin, winning it a swathe of spirit industry medals and a Great Taste award too.

Best Christmas gin

Edinburgh Gin Christmas, 70cl

This Christmas twist on a London dry gin gives a pleasing nod to the season rather than all-out festive flavour, and personally, that’s the way I like it. Natural juniper already feels Christmassy, but the addition of warming nutmeg, cinnamon and clove, combined with winter citrus, gives your G&T a subtle seasonal glow-up. I particularly liked it with a clementine garnish instead of the usual lemon. The festively adorned box is jolly, making it good as a gift too.

Best low-alcohol gin

Cotswold Dry Gin Essence, 100ml

I love the standard higher-alcohol Cotswold Dry gin – a worthy Great Taste award winner with its natural woodiness, zingy grapefruit, lime and fresh floral flavours of Cotswold lavender – but I love the Cotswold Gin Essence version even more. Housed in a cute 100ml apothecary-style bottle with pipette, just five drops of this concentrated botanical essence in 200ml of tonic makes for a lighter but equally satisfying serve, with just 14 calories, 0.23 units of alcohol and all the natural flavour intact. If you like this approach, Hayman’s Small gin is also delicious – and comes with an adorable thimble for measuring out your gin.

Best flavoured gin

Bathtub Gin Grapefruit & Rosemary, 70cl

Flavoured gin has a well-deserved bad reputation. From bizarre juniper-jarring flavours to synthetic ingredients, there are plenty of bad examples to fall foul of. But not Bathtub’s Grapefruit & Rosemary: here, the natural botanical components of Bathtub Gin – which already has a punchy herbaceous citrus profile – are amplified by the extra infusion, so the bold grapefruit is extra zesty and the rosemary greener and more woodsy. This gin is creamy, vibrant and perfect for a G&T, with a sprig of rosemary and a dried grapefruit slice. (Agnes Arber’s Pineapple gin and Sipsmith’s Chilli & Lime Gin were close runners-up in this category.)

Best gin for sipping

Still GIN, 70cl

You’re allowed to be sceptical about Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre making a gin – but brilliantly, it’s decent. Designed to be smooth enough to drink straight up (though surely they’d approve of some juice), this is a very gentle, harmonious gin, with a soft balance of orange citrus fruit, jasmine flower and angelica root, dialling down on the juniper. It’s copper pot-stilled, which distils more slowly and evenly – accounting for the extra smoothness. I genuinely enjoyed sipping it straight with plenty of ice (go for bigger ice cubes to avoid dilution) and a garnish of orange peel.

Best unusual gin

Hendrick’s gin, 70cl

Is Hendrick’s unusual? Not so much these days, now craft gins are doing all sorts of things – but it was one of the first to do things a bit differently. The brand still occupies this space, and it does it well. Hendrick’s is made in an unusual way too: two base spirits are created in different stills – one rich, one delicate – before both are infused with classic gin botanicals, along with less classic ingredients such as chamomile, elderflower and cubeb berries (like allspice). The spirits are then blended and steeped in rose and cucumber, which provide the prominent top notes of the finished product. The original serve – with tonic and sliced cucumber – continues to hold up, and is still the most refreshing G&T for summer.

Best luxury gin

Aureus Vita Fibonacci dry gin, 70cl

Chemist turned master distiller John Hall achieved the highest ever score for a gin from the IWSC for his Trevethan Gin (98/100), but he was keen to better it. Using his background in science, he completely rethought the distillation process. Using the golden ratio of 1:1.618 throughout extraction, distillation and dilution, the spirit is designed to be perfectly balanced and harmonious. Distilled once every autumn, each year’s expression is unique, like vintage wine. Last year’s vintage is clean and cool with a juicy pine quality and zesty freshness. It makes a superlative mini martini – keep it on the small side, though, as the 61.8% ABV is punchy.

Best sustainable gin

Renais Harvest Edition, 70cl

Actor Emma Watson’s family have been winemaking in Burgundy for more than 30 years, and Renais is the creation of Emma and her brother. Pressed grape skins salvaged from winemaking create the base spirit that’s infused with botanicals from the estate, including its own acacia honey. On the menu at the Savoy, the Rosewood and Soho House, Renais tastes silky smooth, refreshing and has an easily discernible wine-like tang, setting it apart from juniper-heavy gins. The Harvest Edition sees a limited run of 600 beautiful bottles that feature London-based artist Frankie Penwill’s whimsical label and sleeve, plus a bespoke A4 print, making it a lovely gift for yourself or an arty gin-drinking pal.

For more, read the best whisky and the best Christmas drinks

Joanne Gould is a food, drink and lifestyle writer with a decade of experience. As well as enthusiastically eating her way through London’s best bars and restaurants, she’s also a keen home cook and can often be found trying a new recipe or kitchen gadget, while taste-testing anything from South African wines to speciality coffee or scotch. Luckily, she also enjoys walking, running and keeping fit and healthy in her spare time – for balance

This article was originally published on 18 July 2025. Reviews published in the Filter may be periodically updated to reflect new products and at the editor’s discretion. The date of an article’s most recent update can be found in the timestamp at the top of the page. This article was amended on 12 December 2025; five new gins were added after testing, and prices were updated throughout.

Illustration: Sandra Navarro/Guardian Design

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