So I've been drinking gin and tonics for about 15 years.
When I started I was in college and my contemporaries were swilling down "Captain and Cokes" or "Jack and Gingers" so drinking something that was not directly tied to a brand of budget priced alcohol seemed cool and aloof... Or perhaps "Gilbey's and Polar" just doesn't roll off of the tongue. Yeah, I drank Gilbey's. I was a poor college student.
It was my poverty that lead to quite a bit of experimentation on the gin and tonic front. One often has to make due with what one has at hand, so I often had gin and club soda, gin and sprite, gin and tonic with lemon (as that was all we were able to steal from food services) Gin on the rocks -- ouch--and the occasional martini when we could find vermouth and an olive.
As I grew older my tastes refined and I stepped up to Beefeater, and there was more and more tonic in my my beverage until it became something that could be legally sold in a bar.
Finally around age 27 I started getting hang overs, and my tastes changed again to prefer Tanqueray and if possible Tanqueray Ten.
I included this preface to suggest that I do in fact have a long and storied involvement with the prototypical gin highball. So imagine my surprise when I was handed a G&T that I had never tried before.
Last night Kevin introduced me to a Hendricks Gin and Tonic with a cucumber slice.
It's fascinating, where the classic lime wedge pops the Christmas-tree characteristics of gin, the cucumber seems to almost erase them. It's possible that Kevin had made his with club soda as that was available, but if it was a classic, the bitter quinine taste was also reduced. That simple vegetable wedge moved the gin and tonic from late night in the bar, to mid-afternoon on the patio.
The only detraction is that I'm not sure if it was the Hendricks gin or any of the other dozen toxins I had last night, but I woke with one heck of a hangover today and I think someone turned my stomach upside down.
Still this warrants further investigation.
Two things - I believe Hendricks markets itself as not tasting like juniper, and also Bombay Sapphire has become my new martini gin of choice in bars. it seems a bit, well, lighter than Tanqueray. We should taste test this hypothesis.
ReplyDelete-G
Different tonic waters will give different tastes, I for one detest Polar as its super bitter.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to point out I was big into gin back in college...
That's a good point Curt . . . Maybe I should try a sort of reverse tasting. Keep the same proportions, and the same gin, but swap out 1/2 a dozen different tonics . . . It would cost all of $8 and be an interesting way to spend an afternoon . . .
ReplyDeleteAnd duly noted: You were not one of my heathen friends in college . . . at least not in terms of booze.