Spirits & Liqueurs Gin

7 New Gins to Try Right Now

These bottles showcase the spirit’s full range.

New gin bottles 2022

Liquor.com / Laura Sant

Few spirits show the creativity of today’s distillers as gin does. Though the spirit seems to sit in whiskey’s shadow, it remains every bit as vibrant and dynamic as its brown cousin, showcasing the range and vision of the craft movement through widely varying flavor profiles.

The use of local ingredients has long been a trend among gin distillers, allowing them to produce unique spirits with a sense of place. Hendrick’s Neptunia, a limited-edition release from the mainstay brand, highlights the flavors of Scotland’s coastline, while Kenya-based Procera gin employs all-African botanicals—including its namesake procera juniper berry, which is added fresh rather than dried, as is typical. Virginia’s Catoctin Creek, meanwhile, offers a closed-loop Old Tom gin that uses the distillery’s own pear-brandy barrels for added flavor and texture.

Other gin makers are differentiating through seasonal releases, such as Frankfort, Kentucky’s Castle & Key, whose Rise spring gin varies from year to year and in 2022 includes the use of rose petals. The floral botanical also features in New York Distilling Co.’s seasonal gin, the limited-edition Dorothy Parker Rose Petal gin, which builds on the distillery’s popular core offering. This summer-forward spirit has a blushing pink color, as beguiling in appearance as it is in flavor.

Visual enjoyment factors into Scapegrace gin as well. The New Zealand-made spirit has an all-natural black hue that transforms to a lively lavender with the addition of tonic. It may seem like a gimmick, but the gin stands up in a number of cocktails. The latest offering from Fords may also raise eyebrows, but trust founder Simon Ford to know what he’s doing: Ford’s sloe gin restores dignity to the oft-maligned liqueur with a more bracing proof and prominent botanicals that demand to be taken seriously. 

Explore the spectrum of today’s gin diversity with these seven bottles.

  • Castle & Key Rise 2022 ($36)

    Castle and Key Rise gin

    Liquor.com / Laura Sant

    Over the past eight years, Frankfort, Kentucky’s Castle & Key Distillery has been meticulously restored, literally brick by brick, to become one of the hottest destinations on the Bourbon Trail. But its white spirits, especially its gins—which are distilled from a base of new-make rye whiskey—shouldn’t be overlooked. There’s a core expression and two seasonals, including the spring-and-summer-ready Rise, whose recipe changes annually. For 2022, Rise features pre-distillation-steeped rose petals along with seven other botanicals, including green cardamom and tarragon.

  • Catoctin Creek Pearousia Barrel Old Tom ($50)

    Catoctin Creek Pearousia Barrel Old Tom gin

    Liquor.com / Laura Sant

    There’s no rule that Old Tom gin must be barrel-matured; in fact, it often isn’t. But as craft distilleries have expanded their ranges to include aged spirits, many have repurposed whiskey barrels for gin. Catoctin Creek, known for its rye, might have put its gin in whiskey barrels. Instead, the Purcellville, Virginia distillery employed casks in which it had previously matured its Pearousia pear brandy, lending the gin a subtle fruitiness and soft texture that’s rounded out with a touch of added sugar.

  • Fords Sloe Gin ($35)

    Fords Sloe Gin

    Liquor.com / Laura Sant

    If anyone can make sloe gin great again, it’s Simon Ford. The gin guru behind the eponymous Fords brand pays homage to homemade versions of the style, popular in his native UK, with this limited-edition iteration. Built on a base of Fords core London Dry style at high proof, sloe berries from England and France are macerated for 12 weeks before the spirit is strained and sweetened. Proofed to 29% ABV, it’s a bit higher than usual for a sloe gin, making it a more versatile cocktail component that emphasizes the botanicals as much as the berries.

  • Hendrick’s Neptunia ($40)

    Hendrick's Neptunia gin

    Liquor.com / Laura Sant

    No other gin can take as much credit for lending vitality to the style’s creative side as Hendrick’s. While the core cucumber-forward expression reigns supreme, the brand has taken to offering special releases as explorations of other flavor profiles. The latest, Neptunia, draws inspiration from the ocean and incorporates Scottish coastal botanicals alongside citrus. And because Hendrick’s can’t make a gin without whimsical accompaniment, the brand is offering a “Magic-of-the-Sea” spa kit on its website, with 100% of sales supporting conservation group Project Seagrass.

    Continue to 5 of 7 below.
  • New York Distilling Dorothy Parker Rose Petal Gin ($40)

    New York Distilling Dorothy Parker Rose Petal Gin

    Liquor.com / Laura Sant

    A seasonal extension of the Brooklyn distillery’s popular Dorothy Parker gin, this pink-hued spirit comes by its color through an infusion of red and pink rose petals along with crushed elderberries. The fruits serve as a key flavor element as well, buttressed by hibiscus, green cardamom, lemon and orange peel, and other botanicals. Though officially available March through September as an homage to spring and summer, the gin is just as welcome year-round.

  • Procera Blue Dot ($85)

    Procera Blue Dot gin

    Liquor.com / Laura Sant

    Like most produce, juniper has an annual harvest season, so gin, produced all year long, overwhelmingly relies on dried juniper berries—except for Procera. The Kenya-made spirit uses only African botanicals, including fresh berries from the area’s native juniperus procera, which grows locally. (The berries are flash-frozen so that production maintains regularity.) The flavor difference is subtle but profound, creating a gin with appealing earthy notes. Procera Blue Dot is bottled as a vintage, and for every bottle sold, the brand plants a new procera tree.

  • Scapegrace ($40)

    Spapegrace gin

    Liquor.com / Laura Sant

    Gins are usually celebrated for their fragrant aromatics and complex flavors, but Scapegrace incorporates another sensory element to appreciate. Thanks to the use of sweet potato, aronia berry, pineapple, saffron, and butterfly pea flower, the New Zealand-made gin sports a natural black hue—no artificial colors or other ingredients. It looks metal AF but don’t be fooled; when mixed with tonic water, Scapegrace transforms to a lovely lavender, lending pastel hues to cocktails that look as good as they taste.