Square Root Non-Alcoholic Gin and Tonic

If you’re embarking on dry January you may wonder how you’re going to do without your G & T without buying an expensive alt-gin, as they’re often referred to these days.

The answer could well be Square Root London’s Non-alcoholic Gin & Tonic which is made by a Hackney-based company which beer writer Pete Brown and I selected as our drinks producer of the year when we judged the BBC Food & Farming awards back in 2015.

You’ll see instantly from the light, lemony colour it’s not a classic G & T although it contains many of the gin botanicals juniper, cubeb pepper, cardamom, liquorice, angelica, coriander together with Persian dried limes which you can definitely pick up in the finished drink. This base is blended with their own tonic water and fresh Sicilian lemon peel. It’s a bit like a drier, fresher, more natural tasting bitter lemon but has definitely nailed that crisp G & T character. You can buy it for £1.80 from their online shop.

They also sent over a bottle of their Sbagliato, a pale pink 0.5% cocktail-like shandy as they describe it (also £1.80) which they’ve made in collaboration with Partizan Brewing. Although it contains a tiny amount of beer it also includes grape must, aronia (chokeberries) wormwood and quinine so has the bittersweet taste of a Italian aperitvo,

What I like about Square Root is that they use entirely natural ingredients and make everything themselves from scratch. Given that, their prices are really reasonable plus delivery for 15 bottles is a modest £5.

I was sent the Square Root Non-Alcoholic Gin and Tonic and Sbagliato as free samples