First Impressions
That Boutique-y Gin Company's Yuletide Gin is the most audaciously Christmas gin ever produced. The botanical bill reads like Santa's workshop inventory: juniper, cassia, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins, medjool dates, cloves, allspice, clementine, cardamom, ginger, whole pomanders (oranges studded with cloves), Christmas tree needles (both balsam and Douglas fir), actual Christmas cake, charred oak, chestnuts, Christmas puddings, chocolate truffles, Lebkuchen, mince pies, panettone, a gingerbread house, frankincense, myrrh, and edible gold flakes. It sounds absurd. It tastes like Christmas distilled.
Tasting
The nose is Christmas pudding — succulent raisin, cassia, cinnamon, gingerbread, buttery shortbread, amaretto, flaked almonds, cardamom, candied peel, and Christmas tree. On the palate, plump jammy clementine with toasted spice — from mince pies to panettone, Christmas tree, and the incense of Midnight Mass. The finish is extraordinary: candied citrus, glacé cherries, Turkish delight, toasted pine cone — musky frankincense leaving remarkably long warmth like holiday embers fizzling out. At 46%, the botanical complexity has the body to express itself.
The Bottom Line
Yuletide Gin earns an 8 for turning an absurd concept — distilling Christmas itself — into something genuinely magnificent. Every festive flavour is present, somehow in harmony rather than chaos. At around £35, the definitive Christmas gin and an unmissable gift.
