Discover the best blood orange gin cocktail recipes!

Blood orange gin is fast becoming our new favourite thing and, with distilleries like Beefeater, Malfy Gin and Whitley Neill releasing their own versions, it’s obvious we aren’t the only ones.

But what is blood orange gin and which are the best recipes to use it in? In this feature, you’ll everything you need to know about this marvellous tipple, including three incredible blood orange gin cocktail recipes, its flavour, what it mixes with and where you can buy blood orange gin.

What is blood orange gin?

It is a flavoured gin that’s made by combining blood oranges with a gin base, usually a classic London Dry - scroll down to find our great guide to making your own at home!

What does blood orange gin taste like?

Blood oranges are known to have hints of raspberry, cherry and pink grapefruit amongst the key notes of their flavour profile, so you should expect to find all of those in a good blood orange gin.

However, each gin will taste different depending on the distillery that makes it and the spirit used as its base. We certainly wouldn’t expect Beefeater Blood Orange Gin to taste exactly the same as Whitley Neill’s version or Malfy Gin’s version.

If you haven’t tried a blood orange gin before then we recommend starting with three of our favourites: Fox’s Kiln Distillery Blood Orange Gin, Three Wrens Blood Orange & Apricot Gin and Tarquin’s Cornish Sunshine Blood Orange Gin.

Pssst…Did you know that if you buy any large bottle of Tarquin’s gin from Craft Gin Club’s online shop today (like, say, Tarquin’s Cornish Sunshine Blood Orange Gin!), then you’ll get a free miniature bottle of Tarquin’s too when you use the code TARQUINSMINI at the checkout. Click here to find out more!

How to make the best blood orange gin:

To make this flavoured gin at home, all that you need is gin (ideally, a crisp, clean London Dry), some caster sugar and some fresh blood oranges - their season in the UK is usually from December to April, so watch out for them in the supermarkets and market stalls.

What does blood orange gin go well with?

Like most citrus-forward gins, this gin is really versatile and happy with a range of different flavour combinations. However, we think it goes particularly well with woody herb flavours like rosemary and thyme.

Which tonic water goes with orange gin?

As you might imagine, we recommend mixing this gin with tonic waters that have herbaceous notes, like Fever-Tree Meditarean Tonic Water. For a garnish, rosemary or thyme or both work really well. Together, they make for a fantastic G&T!

Other great mixers include ginger ale and classic tonic waters. The zesty ginger ale is a great match for the rich citrus notes of the gin and those same notes make for a delicious contrast to the crisp, delectably bitter palate of a tonic water.

Those juicy, fruity flavours in the gin also work great with bitter spirits like Campari in cocktails like a classic Negroni or Frozen Negroni and with touches of spice from the likes of Angostura Bitters.