Falmouth Dry Gin the Cornish gin that started it all
If you’ve come across Loveday before, chances are you’ve met Falmouth Dry Gin. It’s the first spirit we ever made and, five years on, it’s still the one we reach for most often at the distillery.
It was created during a strange time to start a drinks company. Lockdown had everyone stuck at home, hospitality was closed, and we had no grand plan beyond the feeling that drinks should be a bit more joyful, a bit more generous, and a bit less bound up in old clichés.
What we did have was a small still, a distillery unit, and the sort of ingredient-curiosity and flavour-obsession that chefs tend to be saddled with.
The result was a small batch Cornish gin that tastes unmistakably coastal. Fresh, savoury, and built around botanicals you might recognise from a walk along the Falmouth coast.
Building a Cornish gin from scratch
From the start, we approached Falmouth Dry more like a kitchen project than a traditional gin recipe.
Both of us had spent years working as chefs, so botanicals felt less like technical ingredients and more like flavours to cook with. Instead of asking “what goes in a gin?”, the question was more along the lines of:
What tastes good together? What Pairings and ingredients do we love to use when cooking?
That approach led us towards a slightly unusual base for a botanical gin. Fennel quickly became the backbone of the recipe. It brings a gentle savoury sweetness and a sort of soft herbal depth that plays brilliantly with coastal ingredients.
Alongside that we added fresh rock samphire, lemon peel and a handful of other botanicals that lean into that coastal gin profile - bright, salty, herbaceous and fresh.
Getting the balance right took time.
Actually, quite a lot of time.
By the time the final recipe landed, we’d gone through 63 iterations. On the sixty-third run the fennel base suddenly clicked into place, everything sat where it should, and the gin finally tasted like the thing we’d been aiming for all along.
A small but memorable first tasting
Back then we didn’t have the big tasting circle we do now. It was mostly friends, family and anyone willing to try a slightly experimental craft gin from Cornwall.
One of the early bottles went to someone who works for an alcohol distributor and has a very good palate.
He came back with:
“Well that's all right, isn’t it?”
Which, in the understated language of the drinks trade, is basically a standing ovation.
Why it’s called Falmouth Dry
The name Falmouth Dry Gin arrived fairly early in the process.
It’s a nod to the classic “London Dry” style of gin, but with our hometown at the centre instead. Falmouth is where the distillery began, where the first recipes were made, and where the coastal ingredients that shape the gin come from.
There’s also a small technical detail that makes the name slightly cheeky.
Despite the reference, Falmouth Dry isn’t actually a true London Dry gin. After distillation we add a concentrate of fresh samphire, which technically disqualifies it from that category.
We’ve never minded too much about that though- the flavour is better for it.
A coastal gin with a savoury backbone
What makes Falmouth Dry distinctive is that fennel-led base and the fresh coastal lift from samphire and citrus.
It’s a savoury, herbaceous gin rather than a big juniper punch. Think fennel fronds, lemon peel and sea air rather than pine forests.
It’s excellent in a classic G&T with good tonic and a slice of orange, which lifts the citrus and softens the savoury edge. It also works beautifully in a Martini (preferably the dirty variety), where the fennel note gives the drink a slightly more interesting backbone.
Around the distillery it also tends to appear alongside seafood. Our seafood restaurant stockists love this. That coastal flavour profile was never accidental.
Small batch gin from Falmouth
Today every bottle of Falmouth Dry is still distilled, bottled and labelled in our distillery in Falmouth, Cornwall. It remains a genuinely small batch gin, made the same way we made those early experimental runs.
The process has become more efficient over the years, but the philosophy hasn’t changed. Real ingredients, fresh botanicals, and a flavour profile that reflects where it’s made.
That approach has brought Falmouth Dry onto a lot of drinks shelves over the last few years, and we still hear from people who tell us it’s the bottle they keep coming back to.
A Cornish gin worth sharing
Falmouth Dry Gin was created as a celebration of the place we live and the kind of drinks we like to share with friends. It’s coastal, slightly savoury, and designed to be easy to enjoy rather than something overly serious.
If you’re looking for a darn good Cornish gin with real botanical character, it’s a very good place to start.
Preferably poured generously, with good tonic, ice, and the sort of company that makes another round feel like a sensible idea.
Get yours here
