Ungava Canadian Gin is one of those bottles that makes you pause on the back bar — and not just because of its distinctive yellow hue. At 43.1% ABV and sitting at the £30.25 mark, it occupies an interesting position in an increasingly crowded premium gin market, straddling the line between accessible everyday pour and something with genuine provenance worth talking about.
A Northern Character
What strikes me about Ungava is the branding story. The name references the Ungava Peninsula in northern Quebec, and the gin leans heavily into that Canadian wilderness identity. It's classified as a London Dry, which tells us the botanical character is baked in at distillation rather than added afterwards — a commitment to process that I always respect. The striking golden colour suggests botanicals that bring real pigment to the party, which is unusual for the category and gives it immediate shelf standout in a sea of clear spirits.
At 43.1%, it sits just above the legal minimum for gin and carries enough weight to hold its own in mixed serves without bulldozing the botanicals. This is a gin that clearly wants to be noticed, and in a market where differentiation is everything, that visual signature alone gives it commercial legs that many competitors would envy.
Where It Sits
I'd score Ungava at 7.4 out of 10. It's a solid, well-positioned gin with genuine distinctiveness in a category drowning in lookalikes. The Canadian provenance story gives bartenders something to talk about, and that colour is a conversation starter in any glass. It doesn't quite reach the heights of the very best London Drys, but it earns its place on any serious back bar.
Best served: In a G&T with a premium Indian tonic and a twist of grapefruit peel — the kind of simple, striking serve that lets the colour do the selling for you. Bartenders love a build that looks as good as it tastes, and Ungava delivers that effortlessly.
