There's something utterly captivating about holding a piece of gin history in your hands. Curtis London Dry Gin, bottled in the 1970s, is a spirit that transports you back to an era when London Dry meant something uncompromising — when juniper led the charge and everything else fell respectfully into line behind it.
A Window Into Classic London Dry Style
At 43% ABV, this sits right in that confident sweet spot that was standard for quality spirits of the period, before the modern trend toward lower bottling strengths took hold. That extra degree or two above today's common 40% makes a genuine difference to how a London Dry carries itself — there's more structure, more authority on the palate, and the botanicals have a fuller canvas to express themselves.
What fascinates me about vintage gins like this Curtis bottling is what they reveal about the craft of a bygone era. The London Dry method demands that all flavour comes from redistillation — nothing added after the still — and distillers of the 1970s were working within a tradition that prized clean, juniper-forward profiles with supporting notes of citrus peel and warm spice. It's the blueprint that every contemporary London Dry still references.
Best Served
If I were fortunate enough to open this bottle, I'd keep things reverential. A classic Martini — five parts gin to one part dry vermouth, stirred over ice for a full thirty seconds, strained into a frozen coupe with a lemon twist expressed over the surface. At 43%, it has the backbone to stand up beautifully in that ratio. Alternatively, a simple G&T with a premium Indian tonic and a twist of lemon peel would let the vintage character speak for itself.
Scoring a vintage bottling is always a balancing act between historical significance and drinking experience, but at 7.7 out of 10, this Curtis earns its marks as a genuinely interesting artefact of London Dry tradition — a gin that reminds us where the category came from.
