The 5 Best Sloe Gin Brands To Stock Up On This Fall

Whether or not you're a regular imbiber, you've undoubtedly heard of the sloe gin fizz. The retro cocktail is a wonderfully light summer sipper featuring sloe gin, club soda, a simple syrup, and often some sort of citrus addition. Sloe gin on its own, though, is the perfect winter drink. It's warm, bright, fruity, and sweet, all while retaining that aromatic juniper-esque undertone characteristic of gin.

Made by infusing sloes (a type of berry that grows largely in England) into gin, sloe gin marries the best of all worlds; the tart astringency of sloe berries, when mixed with sugar and infused into herbaceous gin, makes a drink that has a unique multidimensionality to it. As I recently tried and wrote on some of the best berry liqueurs available on the market, sloe gin seemed like the logical next spirit to focus on. I did some digging to discern some of the best sloe gin brands accessible to wide audiences (by scouring forums and spirits blogs) and wound up with five different bottles to feature in this piece. Here are the selections I'd recommend. 

Some recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

You've likely seen the Hayman's label in your local liquor store; after all, the company has remarkable longevity. Around since 1863, it has since become a powerhouse name in the gin industry and is still a family-run distillery (in fact, all of its stills are named after female family members). The distillery is incredibly well-regarded in its home city of London, but the name is ubiquitous internationally. Hayman's features an impressive lineup of different styles of gin, including London Dry, Old Tom, and Sloe Gin, the latter of which is the obvious subject of this piece. 

Hayman's sloe gin is undoubtedly gin-forward on the nose with some subtle, sweet berry undertones to it. I immediately liked it upon sipping. It has some sharpness to it, and you don't lose the aromatics typical of a gin, but that's nicely balanced out by some berry and dark plum sweetness and a pretty smooth finish. It's ultimately a very balanced sloe gin that I enjoyed drinking straight. I wouldn't recommend using it in anything too complicated, lest you run the risk of overpowering the gin. Try it in its namesake drink, the sloe gin fizz. Alternatively, the bottle suggests it would also be a yummy pairing for sparkling wine, which is a claim I can wholly believe. 

Another family-run distillery churning out some incredible sloe gin is Spirit Works, which won the 2020 Distillery of the Year award (presented by the American Distilling Institute). Founders Ashby and Timo Marshall have environmental justice backgrounds, and Timo's family has a generations-long tradition of making sloe gin; the result was a sustainability-focused distillery that specializes in just that. The passion for the craft certainly shows in the two different sloe gin bottles I received. I was initially only going to highlight one, but to my surprise, they each taste so unique from one another that I feel I have to talk about both. 

The classic sloe gin is bright and warm on the nose, with some surprising orange undertones to it, and it had the purest amber color of the bottles I tried. I adored this upon sipping and would call it among the most unique sloe gins featured here. It's sweet, very bright, and citrus-forward, with jammy notes rounding out the sip. The gin essence is subtle and smooth, which I didn't find to be a bad thing at all.

The barrel reserve bottle is a whole different ball game. It's apparently a very limited offering, and it's definitely darker on the nose than the previous. Sipping it revealed some deep stone fruit notes rather than the citrus flavors I experienced with the classic bottle, and this offering was also more gin-forward but still a smooth sipper. I got plentiful notes of cherry and plum. I was shocked by how different this offering was from the prior — if you can get both, I'd recommend it. 

The Sipsmith brand was ideated in 2007 out of a desire to create the best London Dry Gin on the market. In 2008, the fledgling company achieved a remarkable feat: It got a law overturned that had been in place since 1823, which would allow it to get a license for its 300-liter still (previously, you could only license stills over 1,800 liters). This opened the brand up to be able to craft small batches of gin. Sipsmith's recipe was finalized in 2009, and the rest, as they say, is history. Bottles from the B Corp are now available internationally, with a lovely sloe offering among them.

I promise not to be biased by the gorgeous bottle, as hard as that may be — I mean, how could you resist grabbing that label off the shelf? You'd be right to judge the book by its cover in this case, as this is really a very good sloe gin. It had some spiciness on the nose that I didn't experience with the other bottles on this list. Much to my delight, tasting it revealed spice and herbal notes that make this bottle stand apart from the rest. It wasn't very sweet, but it was still smooth and had a fruity appeal to it — definitely still identifiable as a sloe gin. Its mouthfeel is very thin, and this was among the gentlest bottles in this round-up. As such, refrain from overpowering it. Try it in a simple gin cocktail, sip it straight, or enjoy it with something subtle and bubbly. 

Of course, I couldn't make this list without featuring the ultimate gin distillery: Plymouth Gin. Founded in 1793, it's the oldest English distillery still in operation and has spent centuries carving out a name for itself in the gin industry. Plymouth's Original Gin is still made using the original 1793 recipe, so there's something to be said for the staying power of its formula. Remarkably enough, the distillery only features five core bottles in its lineup (at the time of writing this piece): Plymouth Original Gin, Plymouth Gin Navy Strength, Mr King's 1842 Recipe, Plymouth Fruit Cup, and Plymouth Sloe Gin. 

I could have been fooled into thinking this bottle was part of my aforementioned berry liqueurs roundup if I was doing a blind taste test. Perhaps its deep burgundy hue gives it away, but this was by far the most jam-tasting of any of the sloe gins on this list. That said, it was still sharp, though not as juniper-forward or aromatic as other bottles discussed above. It has a thin, almost syrupy mouthfeel, and though it isn't shy about its flavors, it's incredibly easy to sip neat. Of all the bottles on this list, this is the one I'd be most cautious of overpowering — not because it's at all subtle, but because I wouldn't want to lose any of its tart-sweet balance or the very minute aromatic qualities present. All of that is to say, it's very, very good. 

Mr. Boston is likely to be a controversial pick for this list, so I'll get the obvious out of the way first: This is not a high-end bottle of sloe gin. Rather, I found it worthy of a spot on this list because it's insanely budget-friendly while still imparting that sloe flavor you look for in the gin. The brand doesn't have a sole focus on gin; rather, it produces a wide variety of affordable spirits, some of which may already have carved a nook on your bar cart. If you're dying to try a sloe gin recipe but only have around $10 to spend on a bottle of sloe, this should be your go-to. 

It smells like sweet cherries on the nose, almost like a flat cherry cola. As expected, it's also sweet when you taste it, though with some notable astringency to it. There's hardly any bitterness to speak of, which could endear it to folks who don't love the herbaceousness that's typical of gin. It's not a remarkable buy in the sloe gin sphere, but it will fit the bill for any cocktail that calls for sloe. If you want to sip some neat, though, I can heartily recommend any of the above bottles; keep this one around when you need to whip up some quick mixed drinks for a crowd. 

I'm sure this isn't an exclusive list of all the greatest sloe gins on the market; nevertheless, it's a good, concise list of some of the best brands to shop for when you need to satisfy a sloe gin craving. I found the aforementioned brands by searching social forums (namely, Reddit), as well as other spirit blogs and websites, and taking note of which seemed to be highly or frequently recommended. 

Then, I got my hands on the bottles that I could and put them to a final taste test to determine which would make the cut. That's how Mr. Boston ended up on this list — though not a high-end brand, I saw quite a few Reddit users recommending it as a budget-friendly buy. It didn't measure up to the other brands on this list, but it was well worth its $10-something price tag.