Tag: gin

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

Is gin an underrated spirit? It doesn’t have the accolades or acolytes of whiskey or tequila. It lacks the versatility of mix-in-anything vodka.

It’s distinct and rich and feels innately British, owing back to its ubiquitous presence in England three centuries ago. But in terms of alcohol, it’s the NHL to the other big four American men’s sports leagues — rewarding, but not as popular as the rest.

I’m guilty of overlooking it, in part because the first bottle I ever bought was Seagram’s gin and my dumb college student brain had nothing to mix or chase it with but milk (it was an… unpleasant evening). But the fact remains gin is a refreshing spirit, if a bit of an acquired taste, with an impressive depth of botanical flavors and cocktail flexibility.

MORE BEVERAGE OF THE WEEK: A review of Snoop Dogg’s Gin & Juice canned cocktails

With Silent Pool, I ignored that last piece and drank it the way I drink 95 percent of my gin. I mixed it with tonic and a little citrus in what’s a perfect, simple mixed drink. Let’s see if this relatively new entry to an old spirit’s portfolio is any good.

With Badger tonic and a lime: B

Let’s start with the obvious. This glass is [expletive] ridiculous. Silent Pool sent it with the sample bottle and I’d never used it before tonight. I want to say you could fit a proper 24 ounces in there, which is generally not how I process gin but, hell, I live in Wisconsin. I accept your challenge, fancy liquor.

I’m rolling with Badger mixers, an upscale paved road to deliver your booze in smooth cocktails. My review didn’t cover the tonic, but I have high hopes. Well, as high as you can get for a basic mixer like tonic.

It smells and looks like every other gin and tonic I’ve ever had; effervescent, light and citrusy. Fortunately, I poured this heavy so I get a proper Silent Pool experience. It’s potent, but sweet. There’s a strong floral component, but nothing that makes you feel like you’re blending your way through a shrub. That sugary finish keeps it from having the kind of dry experience you’d get from your established old school gins (Bombay, Beefeater, etc).

It makes a solid complement to a sour cocktail. I wouldn’t mind if it were a bit drier — it’s not quite as refreshing as I’d like, but that sweetness makes it very easy to drink, especially on a hot day. I imagine. I’m drinking this in December.

Would I drink it instead of a Hamm’s?

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

No one’s going to confuse Hendrick’s newest brand extension with its classic gin. The latest arrival from the company’s Cabinet of Curiosities is Grand Cabaret, a spirit Hendrick’s labels as an extravagant “fruity gin.”

That in itself isn’t unusual; search “fruit gin” and you’ll get plenty of hits. But there’s a certain stuffiness that seems to follow the larger ginmakers. You don’t see much in the way of sweet varietals from guys like Beefeater or Bombay or Tanqueray. They’re here for classic cocktails and happy to stay in their lane.

That’s made the Cabinet of Curiosities a satisfying detour. Hendrick’s hit this column a year ago with its Flora Adora spinoff, That blend brought extra botanicals into the mix, but aside from some lingering peach didn’t dive all the way into fruit flavors.

Grand Cabaret does.

This blend leans heavily into stone fruits — anything with a pit, really — in order to throw the clock back to what rich folks were drinking in the 1700s because the water could kill them. The goal is a lighter gin with a solid boozy payload — 43.4 percent alcohol by volume — capable of adding depth to simple cocktails.

Let’s see if it works.

with Betty Buzz tonic: B+

The summer months are upon us. That means its prime gin and tonic time, and that’s how I’m going to judge Grand Cabaret. I’ll be mixing it with Betty Buzz tonic water, a premium mixer from Blake Lively’s brand.

The tonic itself is fizzy, sweet and a little sharp. There’s enough citric acid in there to cover if you don’t have a lime. I do, but I want to give this a try on its own first before mitigating any flaws or strengths with more citrus.

Grand Cabaret smells light and floral. There isn’t much here to tell you it isn’t a traditional gin, aside from maybe a feathery touch on the juniper and more of a fruity, herbal bent.

The first sip shows off the stone fruit promised on the label. This is plum and cherry and much sweeter than you’d expect from a typical gin. There’s plenty of berry in there as well, giving you the feeling you were eating a gin-based popsicle. This was already a summer spirit to begin with, but Hendrick’s super charged that by making a fruit-forward booze you can easily turn into a very drinkable two-step cocktail.

There is a little bit of a concern with that. The dryness inherent to gin gets washed away by that fructose finish. You wind up with something a bit sloppy on your lips.

But anyone who wants a standard gin experience can always stick to the regular Hendrick’s (or a hundred other varieties. Hendrick’s is great but my personal preference is The Botanist). I can appreciate the work the brand put in here and the restraint to keep this from being a fully fledged fruit gin and instead just one that leans into the berries and herbs that make it unique.

with Betty Buzz tonic and a lime: A

Oohhhhhh yeah. That’s the balance. The sweet sloppiness of the stone fruit in this gin gets cleaned up by the sharp citrus. That fixes just about every minor problem I had with the drink and really takes it to another level.

The lime also brings out the depth of the fruit in the Grand Cabaret, giving you that plum and cherry much more clearly. The taste lingers long after it clears your lips, not in a weak aftertaste way but as a full-bodied reminder that you’re drinking something different. That cherry is light and flavorful throughout, and while it’s clear you’re drinking gin I can honestly say I’ve never had a gin and tonic like this.

I’m gonna be crushing these all summer. Take the extra step and slice yourself a lime. Hot damn.

Would I drink it instead of a Hamm’s?

This is a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Hendrick’s Grand Cabaret over a cold can of Hamm’s?

Absolutely. Especially if I have a lime available.

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

Most gins trace their lineage back to the United Kingdom, a place where 70 degrees Fahrenheit can be considered steamy weather and the sun was long rumored to be a myth. This is alarming, because there may not be a better hot weather cocktail than the simple, beautiful and thoroughly British gin and tonic.

The simple combination of juniper and botanical slurry with lightly sweet quinine-infused bubbles and a twist of citrus (lime for me, because I am not complicated) creates a crisp refresher that will quench your thirst and, crucially, get you drunk. Crushable is a word that’s been commandeered by the IPA business — more colonizing nonsense — but ultimately it has always applied to gin and tonics.

And thus, as it is 95 degrees in Wisconsin today and the world around us is broiling, it seems like as good a time as any for a G&T taste test. I’m pairing up three relatively new gins — OK, two new-ish gins and one variant from Hendrick’s, which has been around since 1999 but looks much older — to figure out which I want to add to my stable.

And it’s a pretty small stable; my go-to gin is The Botanist, distilled on Islay in Scotland against the backdrop one of the world’s last truly perfect towns. But The Botanist, delicious as it is, can be tough to find in middle America, so it’s time to broaden my horizons.