We're here at Laverstoke Mill Distillery, the home of
Bombay Sapphire. This is our state of the art Gin Distillery, which opened its doors to the public in 2014 following a three year renovation. The Mill has been carefully renovated with sensitivity to the heritage of the sites, but with a focus on sustainability. Laverstoke Mill brings together artisanal craft and state of the art technology under one roof.
Bombay Sapphire is distilled using a secret recipe dating back to
1761 in a process called vapor infusion, which we still use today. The process starts with the sourcing and selection of our ten exotic botanicals from around the world. Ivano Tonutti, a master of botanicals plays a vital role building close personal relationships with our suppliers over many years. Ivano hand selects only the best quality ingredients from each supplier and without this rigorous quality control, Bombay Gins would not benefit from the delicate and refined flavors extracted from each botanical to create perfect balance in the Spirit. Bombay Sapphire is the only
London Dry Gin to use
100% vapor infusion in its distillation, and here is how the process works. The still is charged with a blend of water and neutral grain Spirit. As the Spirit is heated, it turns to vapour and passes up through the column. Our columns control the flow of vapour at the right temperature to give the perfect flavour profile of Bombay Sapphire. Each of the precious botanicals are carefully placed in to perforated copper baskets. The precise quantity of each of botanical is a secret only known to the master of botanicals and the master distiller.
Unlike other Gin distillations, the botanicals are not boiled directly in the Spirit, instead, the Spirit vapor passes through the copper basket infusing the botanicals to extract and capture the aromatic flavor and aromas. The vapor then moves to condensing column where cold water running through the pipes gently cools the vapor, returning it to liquid.
This is the Spirit stage where we can continuously nose and taste the display throughout the entire batch to ensure that the quality is always perfect. The vapor infusion and single thought processes are expensive and time-consuming. And although there are quicker, easier and cheaper ways to produce a London Dry Gin, we prefer to use the traditional methods championed by the
Dakin family. The process allows more the bright, fresh and uplifting botanical flows and aromas to be captured in the Spirit giving us a perfectly balanced and tantalizing spectrum of flavor.