Lyre’s has one of the biggest ranges in the non-alcoholic spirits world, an Australian brand that seems intent on cloning an entire back bar one bottle at a time. We have already spent time with their Classico Grande sparkling, so the natural next stop is Dry London Spirit, their take on gin and the bottle most people mean when they go looking for a Lyre’s gin review.
On paper, gin should be the easiest spirit to imitate without alcohol. Its identity comes from botanicals, juniper above all, rather than from barrel aging or a particular fermented base. In practice, the hard part is not the flavor. It is everything else alcohol does in the glass.
What It Is
Dry London Spirit is a non-alcoholic spirit modeled on London dry gin, the classic unsweetened, juniper-dominant style. Rather than distilling botanicals the way a gin producer would, Lyre’s builds its flavors from natural extracts and essences, which is the house approach across their whole lineup. It comes in the same 700 ml bottle as the rest of the range, and like most NA spirits it is best kept refrigerated after opening and finished within a few weeks, since there is no alcohol around to preserve it.
Flavor Profile
The nose is genuinely gin-like: juniper up front, lemon and orange peel behind it, and a faint peppery, herbal note underneath. Smelled blind, most people would say gin without hesitation, and that is not something every NA gin alternative can claim.
The palate follows the nose at lower volume. Juniper and citrus peel are both present, along with a light sweetness that a true London dry would not have. The texture is where the illusion slips. It is thin, closer to flavored water than to spirit, and the finish is short. Sipped neat, it reads as a pleasant botanical water rather than a gin, and no amount of wishful thinking changes that. This is the recurring honest truth about the category: flavor is solvable, mouthfeel mostly is not yet.
How It Performs
Mixed, the picture improves considerably. A gin and tonic is where Dry London Spirit earns its keep. At one part spirit to one and a half or two parts of a drier tonic, the juniper holds its own against the quinine, the bitter compound that gives tonic its bite, which is exactly where many NA gins collapse into generic bitterness. We walked through the full build in our zero-proof gin and tonic recipe, and this bottle is a natural fit for it.
Citrus-forward builds also work well. A Collins-style drink with lemon and soda, or a gimlet-style mix with lime cordial, gives the citrus peel notes something to grab onto. Where it struggles is in stirred, spirit-forward territory. An all-spirit martini riff exposes the thin texture immediately, because there is nothing else in the glass to hide behind.
Best Uses
- Gin and tonic, with a dry, lightly sweetened tonic
- Collins and other tall citrus drinks
- Gimlet-style builds with lime cordial
- Any highball where gin would normally be a supporting player
Verdict
Dry London Spirit is for people who miss the ritual of a G&T more than they miss the alcohol in it. In a mixed drink it is one of the more convincing non-alcoholic gins we have tried, with real juniper character and enough citrus to stay interesting. It is not a sipper, and buyers should know that going in. It is also not cheap for what is essentially flavored water, a tension we dug into in Nonalcoholic Drinks Come at a Premium, though the per-drink math looks better when you remember one bottle covers a lot of highballs. If a weeknight G&T is your unwinding ritual and you want to keep it without the alcohol, this is a sensible bottle to start with.
Container: Bottle
Size: 700 ml
Alc Vol: Non-alcoholic (less than 0.5%)