Decem 10% Light Spirit London Dry

On their website, Decem point out that by law in the UK, a spirit, to be called by its category name, has to be 37.5% or more, and to be called low alcohol, a drink must contain less than 1.2 ABV, which leaves a huge grey area in the middle.  Decem’s drinks, as their name hints, contain 10% ABV, or just seven units a bottle,  around half a unit for a 50ml measure.  This allows people to enjoy what they creatively called ‘school night drinking’ with a drink that contains just enough alcohol to give warmth and depth.

These were developed by Billy Wright, a Masterchef finalist who aimed to ‘find the most interesting combinations of fruits, herbs and botanicals to blend genuinely different liquids that hold complex flavours yet are easy to drink with the simplest mixers.’  I think he’s done a fantastic job.

They’re not legally allowed, as we’ve established above, to call this a gin but that’s the taste – a fabulously aromatic and super dry gin, with classic juniper notes but also the heft of citrus, and the aromatic undernotes of spices like orris root and coriander.  It’s beguilingly mixed, almost perfumed in the nose. and the 10% alcohol adds a touch of fire and mouth-filling ethanol which works perfectly.  I think Wright is doing something really exciting here; as someone who loves to keep sipping through an evening but hates starting to feel blurry, I’m excited to find these drinks.