Ask three gin drinkers to name the best premium gin and you will get three different answers, usually driven by whichever bottle they bought first. Browse our full gin collection for all three bottles while you read. So we tried to remove the bias. We ran Suntory Roku, Hendrick’s, and Monkey 47 through a blind tasting, no labels visible, poured by someone who was not tasting, and scored each on a 100-point scale before revealing which gin was which.

The short answer: Monkey 47 won on raw score, Roku won on value, and Hendrick’s remains the gin most likely to divide a room. Here is exactly how we got there, and which one you should actually buy.

Meet Our Tasting Panel

This tasting was run in-house by the Mr. Chow Team, the same spirits specialists who source and stock every gin we sell. We are not professional sommeliers with formal certifications, but we taste every gin we carry as part of sourcing it, and we have run house tastings on our full gin range going back to our first year in business in 2019.

How Did We Run This Blind Tasting?

Each gin was poured by a team member who did not taste, into three identical unlabeled glasses marked only 1, 2, and 3, with the pouring order randomized between tasters. Every gin was scored twice per taster: once neat at room temperature, and once in a 1:2 gin-to-tonic ratio with a neutral tonic and no garnish, so flavor differences came from the gin, not the mixer. Scores were averaged across nose, palate, finish, and overall balance on a 100-point scale, then the labels were revealed.

Suntory Roku, 91/100, RM145 (700ML)

Roku was the gin our panel guessed correctly most often, purely because nothing else in the lineup tastes like it. The sakura, yuzu, and green tea botanicals give it a softness that stood out even blind, and it was the only gin in the tasting that a majority of the panel rated as good neat as it was in a G&T. See the full Suntory range for the house’s other bottles.

Buy Suntory Roku Gin at RM145

Want the full picture on Roku’s six botanicals and how to buy it beyond this comparison? See our Roku Gin Complete Guide.

Hendrick’s, 86/100, RM175 (700ML)

Hendrick’s was the easiest gin to identify blind purely from the nose, cucumber and rose are unmistakable even to a first-time taster, but that same distinctiveness split the panel on the palate. Half our tasters scored it as the most interesting gin of the three; the other half found the rose note fought with the tonic instead of complementing it. Browse the full Hendrick’s range for other sizes.

Buy Hendrick’s Gin at RM175

Monkey 47, 94/100, RM255 (500ML)

Monkey 47 won on raw score by a clear margin, and it is not close on complexity, the 47-botanical recipe (including Black Forest lingonberries) gives it a depth the other two cannot match in a single glass. But at RM255 for a 500ML bottle, it is priced at roughly RM357 on a 700ML-equivalent basis, nearly two and a half times what Roku costs. Every taster who scored it highest also flagged the price as the reason they would not buy it every week. See the Monkey 47 brand page for the rest of the range.

Buy Monkey 47 Dry Gin at RM255

The Value-vs-Score Tension, Explained

Here is the part most gin round-ups skip: the highest-scoring gin is not automatically the right buy. Monkey 47 beat Roku by 3 points on our 100-point scale, but it costs 76% more per bottle at comparable size. Put differently, Roku delivers roughly 97% of Monkey 47’s score at 59% of the adjusted price. If you are buying to impress a specific guest who already knows gin, that 3-point gap might be worth paying for. If you are buying a bottle you will actually finish over a few weeks, Roku is the better bet financially, and most of our panel would not blind-guess the 3-point difference in a casual pour.

Hendrick’s complicates the picture rather than sitting neatly in the middle. It is priced closer to Roku than to Monkey 47, yet it scored lower than both on our panel’s average, and it was also the gin with the widest spread between individual taster scores. In other words, Hendrick’s is the highest-variance bet of the three: some drinkers will love it more than either of the others, and some will actively dislike it, which is not a description that applies to Roku or Monkey 47. If you already know you like cucumber-and-rose gins, that variance works in your favor. If you are buying blind for a mixed group, it is a riskier choice than either alternative. For how these three stack up against the rest of the shelf, see our full Best Gin in Malaysia ranking.

Roku vs Hendrick’s vs Monkey 47 Comparison Table

Verdict by Use Case

Best for a straightforward G&T: Roku, its softness holds up against tonic without a garnish doing the work.
Best for sipping neat with a friend who already loves gin: Monkey 47, the complexity earns the price at this specific moment.
Best for a gin cocktail with citrus or floral notes: Hendrick’s, cucumber and rose shine in a cocktail built around them, less so in a plain G&T.
Best overall value: Roku, by a clear margin once price is factored in.

Still narrowing down how to choose between gin styles in general, not just these three bottles? Our Complete Gin Buying Guide covers how to shop by style and budget before you commit to a bottle.

Want more premium gin comparisons, or curious how these stack against budget London Dry options? Browse the full range on our gin category page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Last updated August 2026.