Loopuyt Dry Gin

The Loopuyt Dry Gin label looks like a Cold War propaganda poster and its name reads like a Swiftian satire, but it drinks like a beautiful, fruit-forward classic dry Gin.

Loopuyt sounds like a fictional island from Gulliver’s Travels, but it turns out that this is a real place. Loopuyt was a town in Holland, and there was an actual distillery named Loopuyt founded there in 1772. The town changed its name, and the old distillery was closed long ago. But if Loopuyt WAS an island nation in a Jonathan Swift novel, it would be populated by tiny Gin-loving happy Dutch people and master distiller Jaco van der Leun would be their king.

Jaco revived the old-world brand as P. Loopuyt & Co in 2013 and started distilling their 1772 Dry Gin—named in honor of the founding of that first distillery in the tiny Dutch town with the odd name.

Loopuyt Dry Gin has a label that looks like it was created by a Soviet politburo. The letters have all the sharp edges and stark colors of a Cold War propaganda poster. But it does look pretty cool and almost forbidden, in a way. So let’s go with that. Inside the bottle is a really solid Classic Dry Gin, with a “cool fruit” essence that is slick as well.

We like it when a distiller tells you what’s inside. Just feels honest, right? And Loopuyt does that. Juniper is there—of course—but the magic is always in the rest of it. In this case you get lavender, orange and grapefruit zest, cinchona, nutmeg, fresh raspberry, cardamon, coriander, and an interesting mix of mulberries, Incan berries (cape gooseberries), and goji berries. What do you get? A fresh-tasting, balanced, “cool” Gin that marries great with tonic. Prost!