This month’s Mixology Monday sees me without ready access to a bar to mix a drink.  On well, I’m going to go ahead and post something anyway.  The theme this month is New Orleans cocktails, so I thought I could post a couple of tips related to making drinks containing egg white, with particular reference to that venerable old New Orleans drink – the Ramos Gin Fizz.

I had made it something of a mission to get a decent Ramos Gin Fizz while in New Orleans for Tales of the Cocktail.  What I really wanted was a Ramos Gin Fizz made by Chris McMillan (check out a video of him mixing one here).  Before leaving for New Orleans I rang the bar he now works at (in the Renaissance Pere Marquette Hotel) and was told by that the great man would be behind the bar on the Friday and Saturday during Tales of the Cocktail from 4pm onwards.  I dropped past the hotel late on Friday afternoon.  The bar was deserted.  There was no queue out onto the street for Ramos Gin Fizzes.  The lobby was not filled with a couple of dozen drinks bloggers, passing a shaker or two around as they shook a couple of fizzes up.  I had lucked out!  Then I got a little closer and realized Chris McMillan was nowhere to be seen.  On asking if he was around I found he was not going to be back at work until the 25th.  Alas it was not to be.

Although the Chris McMillan Ramos Gin Fizz never happened, after the session on New Orleans Drinks I got the chance to ask Chris where I would get a Ramos Gin Fizz in New Orleans given that he wasn’t working his own bar that week.  He told me not to even try at his own bar unless he was there – which made me feel better about slinking out on the poor young guy tending bar there.  Chris suggested The Swizzle Stick Bar at Cafe Adelaide.  I graciously thanked Mr. McMillan before thrusting him out of my way and rushing to Cafe Adelaide.

Once again, it was not to be.  On a better day Chris McMillan’s suggestion may have been a good one.  I should have done well given that I believe my drink was mixed up by Lu Brow – the ‘bar chef’ at Cafe Adelaide.  Unfortunately I have little  good to say about the Ramos Gin Fizz I drank at Cafe Adelaide.  OK, I guess the ingredients and proportions were about right.  Unfortunately the execution was abysmal.  I shake a Daiquiri longer than Lu Brow shook this Ramos Gin Fizz.  I wasn’t expecting the bar to lower its shutters for quarter of an hour while everybody in the room took turns shaking my drink.  Indeed I was half expecting to be tossed out into the street for daring to ask for a Ramos Gin Fizz.  However, given that the place was as near empty as I saw it during Tales of the Cocktail, a shake lasting longer than 15 seconds would have been nice.  The drink tasted OK, but it was rather diluted (the crushed ice they seem to favor for all drinks in The Swizzle Stick Bar is not always the way to go), and texturally it was way off.  That said, at least I was able to go into a bar and order a Ramos Gin Fizz without throwing the barstaff into a fit of confusion.  You couldn’t do that in most places.

The Swizzle Stick Bar Ramos Gin Fizz was a sorry contrast to the exceptionally frothy Pisco Sour I enjoyed in The Alembic in San Francisco.  The Alembic pisco sour was probably the stand out drink from my U.S. trip.  The difference between the two drinks was the level of care taken with the execution.

So where am I going with all this?

I thought for this Mixology Monday I would throw a couple of Ramos Gin Fizz making tips out there.  I have not tried the third of these myself, since it is something I learned from a bartender/blogger while attending Tales.  I’ve now forgotten who told me this, so give a shout if you happen to be reading.  I haven’t tried the fourth either, but professional bartenders seem to like it.

Tip number 1 – Dry shake the mixture before adding any ice.  This shouldn’t need to be said, but many people skip this essential step.

Tip number 2 -Add the coil from your Hawthorne Strainer to the shaker while dry shaking (removing it when you add the ice).  The coil will act like a whisk and aerate the egg faster than if you shook without the coil in there.  So far as I know this technique is not traditional.  I have never seen it in a recipe.  However, my experiments have found it to work well.  The pisco sour at The Alembic was made this way.  The Alembic was the first bar where I have seen a dry shake done this way.  Congratulations to the Alembic for taking that extra little bit of trouble.

Tip number 3 – Add the sugar after your dry shake.  The theory behind this is that sugar acts as a stabilizer for existing foam, but actually inhibits foam formation.  I have not experimented with this yet.  However, I was surprised a few weeks back when a batch of pisco sours I made up turned out to have an exceptionally good foam.  Being a batch drink I got a little confused with the proportions and undersweetened to begin with, adjusting the sweetness later.  Perhaps the batch of drinks turned out well because I added about half of the sugar at the end.  While a Ramos Gin Fizz is not a Pisco Sour, I think you want both drinks to be as foamy as possible.  Therefore I suggest trying this technique.

Tip number 4 – You could always cheat and use one of those little battery operated blending sticks, which are small enough to fit into a cocktail shaker.  These seem popular in bars.  The Barsol Pisco brand rep thought they did a good job, as did numerous other people I spoke with.  I don’t have one but will pick one up at some stage.

The Ramos Gin Fizz recipe I use these days is below.  Some recipes leave out the lime, but I think the mix of lemon and lime is essential to the flavor.  I also like the vanilla essence, even if it may not be traditional.

2 oz gin

1/2 oz of lime juice

1/2  oz of lemon juice

1 egg white

2 oz cream

several drops of orange flower water (more if using the weak tasting middle eastern stuff)

a drop or two of vanilla essence

1 tsp sugar (add this after the dry shake)

A spash of soda water

Dry shake everything except the sugar and soda for at least a minute.  Add the sugar and give it another long shake over ice to chill and dilute a little. Strain into a fizz glass (or an undersized Collins glass) and top with soda, stirring as you do so to build a frothy head that rises above the glass and begins to run down the sides.  Watch the video above to see what I mean.  In fact why am I even bothering with a recipe here?  Just watch the video.

I did not attend the session on eggs in drinks at Tales of the Cocktail.  Does anyone who attended have more tips on getting better results out of drinks containing egg white?

I am sitting in a hotel room in the Caribbean with nothing besides the rest of my Tales of the Cocktail swag bag mini-bar, a maxi-bottle of Beefeater that came with the Tales of the Cocktail goodies, and some little bottles of Dominican Republic rum.  OK, and I also have my computer, clothes, toothbrush, etc.  What I was really getting at, in my typically convoluted manner, is that this post is not going to contain the words “double strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with three drops of orange bitters and a lemon twist”.  I don’t even have ice handy.  I’ll drink the gin straight, then with tonic water.  No lemons or limes will be hurt in this tasting.

I started by admiring the bottle’s clean Gailic mini-lines.  Ces’t Manifique!

Next I opened it and poured a little (half a bottle to be precise) into a glass.  I somehow skipped the nosing step.  I guess the bouquet was so tempting I had to plunge straight in.  Hmm. . . this stuff is peculiar.  There is a definite grapeiness going on.  It reminded me of grappa and I figured it must be based on grape alcohol.  A little online research confirmed that to be the case, but also revealed that grape vine flowers are included in the botanicals.  Besides this grapeiness there is heavy citrus.  Juniper is there but not in a big way.  This gin is sweet and fruity rather than dry and spicy.

Next I tried putting some tonic water in it.  Unfortunately Canada Dry was all I could find.  Hmm. . . now it tastes like gin with nasty tonic water.  Either this gin is too light to stand up to tonic or Canada Dry is truly awful.  I think it is a bit of both.  Thank goodness I only ruined half the bottle.

I’d have to try this gin in a few more drinks to get a fuller impression.  It seems designed to appeal to non gin drinkers. Despite its grapieness I doubt it would stand up to vermouth in a traditional Martini.  However, it might be nice with lighter aromatized wines like Lillet.  The grapey character would probably come through in a Tom Collins, but seems a subtlety likely to get lost in a Gin and Tonic.  It does not seem ginny enough for typical gin applications, meaning its use needs a little thought.

I’m not left with an overwhelming desire to own a bottle of this stuff, though just maybe that grapey quality could make for interesting drinks.  Though this gin is unlikely to become a favorite of mine it could be right for vodka drinkers seeking an approachable gin, and for mixologists looking for something subtly ginny to work with.

To assist my anticipatory salivation ahead of Anistatia Miller and Jared Brown’s Tales of the Cocktail presentation on “The Cafes of Paris”, I have been taking a look at a few lesser known French aperitifs. Several weeks ago I took a look at Pineau des Charentes. Today I focus on a pair of fruit quinquinas.

Quinquina is vermouth’s neglected cousin. Vermouth is well recognized, if widely feared and misunderstood. Martini drinkers fall into two camps: those who really want vermouth in their drink, and those who merely wish to ritualistically conjure up its spirit. However, while vermouth provokes fierce debate and elaborate juju, the mention of quinquina elicits little more than a blank stare. This is a shame because quinquina is an interesting category. To fix those blank stares, perhaps a little explanation is in order.

Both quinquina and vermouth are aromatized wines (i.e. wines flavored with herbs and spices). Quinquinas distinguish themselves from vermouths in using quinine as a key flavoring. As in tonic water, the quinine originally served a medicinal purpose – warding off malaria and all that. Vermouth and quinquina are not mutually exclusive categories. Some vermouth producers sell ‘quinquina’ versions alongside their regular vermouths: for example Martini & Rossi release their sweet vermouth in both ‘quniquina’ and standard versions. However, despite some overlap there are marked differences, with quinquinas tending to emphasize spice while vermouths are more herbal.

Similar to vermouths, which can be broadly classified into sweet and dry styles, quinquinas largely fall into rouge and blanc styles. The rouge style is rich, spicy and based on red wine – Dubonnet Rouge is the classic example. The blanc style is light, citrus accented, and based on white wine – Lillet Blanc is the iconic product.

For some reason neither of these mainstream styles of quinquina ever challenged vermouth to become a ubiquitous cocktail ingredient. Cocktail recipes never casually call for a generic rouge or blanc quinquina. Quinquina is called for only occasionally, and always by brand. Even luminaries like Charles H. Baker considered Dubonnet to be “only needed in the more elaborate establishments”, and I do not recall him mentioning Lillet at all. Considering that Baker saw orgeat, kummel and six types of bitters as more or less essential bar supplies, this adds up to a bit of a slap in the face for the quinquina category.

If mainstream quinquinas like Dubonnet and Lillet are fairly obscure, fruit flavored quinquina are even more so. These fruity quinquina do not fall within either the rouge or blanc styles, with heavy fruit macerations completely masking the base wine. They deserve a look from cocktailians though, offering a great source of fruit flavors and complexity, yet one with minimal sweetness. Two products are introduced below: RinQuinQuin and Orange Colombo.

RinQuinQuin (15% alcohol by volume) is a peach flavored quinquina. It is produced in Provence by the same firm that makes Henri Bardouin pastis. The name means something like an invigorating drink or a pick-me-up in French. The production process involves maceration, distillation, blending and several months of aging. Both distilled alcohol and wine are infused with quinine, other herbs and spices, and peaches. The peaches are what distinguish the product, and are added not as fruit, but rather as leaves, skins and kernels. This makes for a very complex flavor. The product is lightly sweetened. The result is a fruity but refreshingly dry aperitif wine with a distinctly bitter edge.

Orange Colombo (15% alcohol by volume) is an orange flavored quinquina along the same lines as RinQuinQuin. Based on its complex taste I am guessing it is flavored with more than just orange skins. As in RinQuinQuin, leaves, blossoms or other material may also be used.

These fruit quinquina are traditionally consumed either chilled or over ice, perhaps garnished with a twist of lemon. However, there is no reason they cannot be used in cocktails. Bear in mind that their mild fruitiness makes them poor vermouth substitutes, while their lack of sugar and their herbal complexity prevent them from standing in for fruit liqueurs. A bit of a fresh approach is in order.

Here are a few ideas. . .

Peach Martinez

1 oz Genever (Bols Oude)

1 oz Italian vermouth (Martini Rossi)

1 oz RinQuinQuin

2 dashes Fees Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters

1 tsp maraschino

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

A nice take on the Martinez. Cutting the vermouth with RinQuinQuin makes for a lighter and more interesting drink. The Genever provides a mellow but solid base, neither fading into obscurity nor dominating. The complex peach notes mingle nicely with the cherry. Increase the Genever a little if you find it lacks kick.

When playing around with RinQuinQuin to create variations on existing recipes you will probably find that cutting vermouth half-and-half with RinQuinQuin works better than a straight substitution. RinQuinQuin is more of a one note product than vermouth, albeit a complex note.

RinQuinQuin Vesper

3 oz gin (Tanqueray)

1 oz vodka (Stolichnaya)

¼ oz Lillet Blanc

¼ oz RinQuinQuin

Shake over ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a large lemon twist.

This is just brilliant. By upping the bitterness the RinQuinQuin addresses the problem of Lillet having been reformulated and lightened since the Vesper was originally invented. The RinQuinQuin also adds a peach layer to the citrus in the Lillet.

Orange Colombo can be used to create another nice Vesper variation. Both products can also be used in regular Martinis, where they work especially well with delicate gins like Tanqueray 10 that stand up poorly to vermouth. I would be inclined to split the quinquina 50/50 with vermouth.

Orange Colombo Pisco Sour

2 oz pisco

½ oz Orange Columbo (or cut back to 1/4 oz)

¾ oz lime juice

1/3 oz simple syrup

1 egg white (half an egg white per drink is sufficient if making multiple drinks)

Dash or two of Fees Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters

Put everything except the bitters in a mixing glass. Shake long and hard over ice until the drink becomes foamy. Double strain into a sour glass. Finish the drink by garnishing the foam with a few drops of bitters – you can use a toothpick to draw a pattern on the foam. A sour glass, champagne flute or wine glass is preferable for this drink. The garnish of bitters on egg-white foam is intended to provide aroma. A sour glass concentrates the aromas, while the smaller surface area means that the foam, and the aromas, last longer.

The Orange Columbo adds both a subtle orange note and a light bite, making a pleasant variation that jazzes up the original. Perhaps I am not using the right pisco, but I find pisco sours tend to be a little too plain and smooth. Orange Columbo livens things up without creating an unseemly ruckus. You can also try a splash of Orange Colombo in a Margarita – obviously you will still need the orange liqueur, but possibly it could be scaled back a notch.

There is tons of potential for using these obscure fruit quinquina in cocktails. If you see a bottle you should grab it and have a play around. Currently these products are underutilized, leaving the field wide open to experimentation.

The aim of this post is to compare different gins, and thus to learn about their character and uses in cocktails. Understanding the nuances of different gins is crucial to making good gin-based drinks, so the exercise of comparing gins is highly educational. The gins examined here represent a reasonably comprehensive snapshot of the ‘upper end’ of gins currently available in New Zealand, as well as a fair swathe of what is available internationally.

This post is by no means comprehensive. Many premium gins have yet to make it to New Zealand and thus are not featured. Gins from the cheap-and-nasty category are also not featured; sorry, but I wanted to spare myself. Several mainstream gins (e.g. Beefeater, Gordons, Seagrams, and so on) are excluded for reasons of low proof. In the case of Beefeater I believe only the New Zealand version is low proof, making the exclusion a bit unfortunate.

These ‘low proof’ gins clock in at 37.5%. I see 40% alcohol by volume as the bare minimum for a cocktail gin, with somewhere closer to 45% being preferable and anything over 45% being robust. Cocktails necessarily involve dilution. Even with the coldest ice on earth, a low initial proof will mean a dilute drink. Unless the gin is exceptionally strongly flavored I do not see how 37.5% can work well in a cocktail. In fact it seems more designed for the chug-it-on-a-park-bench crowd. If you belong to that crowd I apologize. No, I actually salute you – nervously of course, studiously avoiding eye contact, and without breaking pace as I hurry past.

Finally, New Zealand gins do feature in this comparison. New Zealand has a couple of local brands making ambitious claims. Since I am from New Zealand it makes sense to pit these local gins against international brands and see how they fare.

Gins Included in the Comparison

This comparison featured the following gins:

- Blackwood’s (Scotland)
- Blenheim Bay (New Zealand)
- Bombay Sapphire (England)
- Broker’s (England)
- Hendricks (Scotland)
- Junipero (United States)
- Martin Miller’s (England)
- Plymouth (England)
- South (New Zealand)
- Tanqueray (England)
- Tanqueray 10 (England)

This post is rather long. To make things easier, you can click each of the above gins to go directly to the relevant tasting notes. If you simply scroll down the page you will find the gins organized according to country, then alphabetically. The tasting methodology is described below. After experimenting with the various gins I wrote a post-tasting roundup which can be reached by clicking here.

Tasting Methodology

The tasting was not blind, but it was comprehensive. The tasting procedures were as follows. The gins were tasted alongside one another, at room temperature, in wine glasses holding 20 ml samples. First I nosed each gin and compared it with the others. Then I tasted each gin and compared again. Then I added a splash of tonic to each, and tasted and compared again. This whole process took at least a couple of hours, including breaks to write notes, drink water, etc.

On a separate occasion I made a Martini from each gin (2 oz gin, ½ oz Noilly Prat dry vermouth, 5 drops Regans Orange Bitters, and a lemon twist garnish). Since the martinis were made at separate times they were not compared with one another, making the Martini impressions more subjective than those from the first part of the tasting. Obviously it was not feasible to simultaneously make that many martinis and compare them.

On another occasion I used each gin in an Aviation (2 oz gin, ½ oz lemon juice, 1/3 oz Maraska Maraschino, 1/6 oz Brittotet Crème de Violette). The Aviation is essentially a gin sour, and since a sour is a very different type of drink to a Martini, a gin that works in one will not necessarily work in the other. The idea was to test the versatility of each gin.

In the case of some of the gins I made other cocktails in addition to a Martini and an Aviation, guided by my sense of what might work.

For each gin I start with brief product information, record impressions from the various stages of the tasting, and finish with a general comment or two.

The Urbane Englishmen

Bombay Sapphire (40% vol)

The release of this gin in 1987 pretty much got the premium gin category started. It is allegedly based on a 1761 recipe, and incorporates ten botanicals: almond, lemon peel, liquorice, juniper berries, orris root, angelica, coriander, cassia, cubeb berries and grains of paradise. Since the release of Bombay Sapphire the company’s original product, Bombay Dry Gin, has become hard to find. Bombay Dry Gin is said to have a more robust and traditional flavor profile, while Bombay Sapphire is positioned as more refined and sophisticated.

- Nose: Dry spices – like faded perfume. Little evidence of citrus or juniper, there is too much else going on. It differs from the other English gins in focusing on dry aromatics to the total exclusion of fruity elements. The ‘dry spice’ character reminds me of the Bokma Jonge from my earlier genever comparison. I wonder what spice that is? Part of it seemed to be angelica, but something else in there was even stronger.

- Taste: Multifaceted and complex. It is simultaneously spicy, dry and sweet. The dominant note is liquorice, and it borders on sickly sweet. Simultaneously there is lots of dry spice. Juniper is absent. There is a lingering dry and alcoholic aftertaste with only slight bitterness. Overall I do not much like it. This is a very confusing gin that does not taste at all like gin.

- Tonic: To my surprise it suddenly became very enjoyable with tonic. I am not sure if this is because the tonic tastes the edge off it, or because the flavors actually improve. Anyway, it makes for a nice dry gin and tonic. There is not much bitterness, but lots of interesting spice. My criticism would be that the flavor is a tad muddy and lacking in direction. There are interesting things going on, but the conclusion seems uncertain. Still good though.

- Martini: Pleasant but lacks bite. The light spicy character is nice, but there is no clear progression from initial taste to aftertaste. While there is lots of flavor, it is all light and spicy and superficial. I think this gin works well with tonic because the tonic supplies the bitterness missing in the gin. Anyway, it is not a bad Martini, but lacks the bite necessary to complete the drink.

- Aviation: This does not work. The light spiciness gets lost amidst the lemon juice and liqueurs, making for a drink with little going on besides a sweet and sour profile. The juniper bite that should give the drink its backbone is missing, and the result is confusing and directionless.

- Palm Beach Special: I made this with 2 ½ oz gin, ¾ oz grapefruit juice and ½ oz Italian vermouth, shaken over ice and served up. This was better than the Aviation, though I still think another gin would be equally good or better. As with tonic, Bombay Sapphire may work nicely with grapefruit here because the grapefruit provides the bitterness this very non-bitter gin lacks.

Final Comment: Too different to classify as a true gin. Mixing with this is likely to be disappointing unless you are very careful. It has its uses though, and makes a nice G&T.

Broker’s (40% vol)

This is a fairly new gin, being launched in 1998. It does not explicitly place itself in the ‘premium’ category, adopting a more low key approach to marketing. The producers do not seem to take themselves too seriously, and each bottle is capped with a distinctive bowler hat. The botanicals are juniper berries, orris root, coriander seeds, nutmeg, cassia, cinnamon, liquorice, orange peel, lemon peel, and angelica root. Cassia and cinnamon are very similar, and often substituted in cooking – with cassia being hotter and less fragrant. The use of both of these spices is interesting, and may account for this gin’s fragrant and woody notes.

Nose: Earthy, woody notes and juniper up front, followed by spice accented citrus.

Taste: The initial attack is mild, but when the full taste arrives it is very solid. Warm spices build towards a solid ball of juniper. Swallowing brings a lingering and tingling sensation of juniper, bitter spice, and a hint of citrus. The aftertaste does not resolve very tidily. You could see this either as a fault or as adding interest. I think I see it the latter way.

Tonic: Quite a mouth puckering gin and tonic, with juniper and quinine bitterness compounding one another. It is enjoyable but plain. You definitely want a citrus wedge in there, and I would also add a splash of bitters.

Martini: A solid Martini. The gin and vermouth combine almost too harmoniously, practically blending into one. Besides juniper, there is smooth citrus, a subtle liquorice note I had not previously detected, and miscellaneous spices. This lacks the bite and zing of some Martinis, but manages to simultaneously be easy drinking and have a fairly traditional profile.

Aviation: A sweetish but well rounded Aviation. The liqueurs shine through particularly brightly, but the juniper is big enough to provide balance. A woody note in the gin complements the maraschino. The aftertaste is long, slightly untidy, but interesting. Like Junipero (see below) this gin tends towards being simplistic, but is robust enough to work in a sour. A good mixing gin.

Jupiter: I made this with 1 1/2 oz gin, 3/4 oz Noilly Prat, and 1 tsp each of orange juice and Parfait Amour. The gin passed the test again, standing up fine to the big dose of vermouth. This gins makes for a conservative interpretation of the drink, with the liqueur alone providing the floral notes. That is probably as it should be. The gin does not dominate, but nor is it shoved aside. It works well.

Final Comment: A respectable mixing gin with a woody and spicy character. It makes a decent, if slightly plain, G&T and Martini. It is versatile in cocktails.

Martin Miller’s (45.2% vol)

This is a premium gin, launched in 2002. In the spirit of premium vodkas there is a gimmicky marketing story. Specifically, the distilled spirit is shipped to Iceland where it is mixed with pure glacier waters before being shipped back to England for bottling. Wow dude, it must be like, really. . . pure, or something. Disregarding the hype, the botanicals are juniper berries, orange peel, lemon peel, coriander, liquorice, cinnamon, cassia, nutmeg, angelica and orris root. A ‘secret ingredient’, rumored to be cucumber, is added to the spirit after distillation. This gin comes in two strengths, a 40% vol standard version and a 45.2% Westbourne Strength. I tasted the Westbourne Strength.

Nose: Intense aroma, with fragrant roots up front, orangey citrus, and a floral note that hangs over everything and softens it. For some reason I seem to be perceiving the cucumber as ‘floral’ rather than ‘vegetal’. Mind you, orris root is said to have a violet smell, so I may be smelling that.

Taste: Citrus, rich spice, and gentle rounded edges. The juniper is restrained but still makes its presence felt. The aftertaste is gentle, leaving behind mild juniper, citrus, warm spices like nutmeg, and palate cleansing cucumber. Smooth and delicate, but not too sweet. I like the nutmeg aspect. My concern would be that this gin is a little delicate for mixing; the strong floral aspects also do not help in this regard.

Tonic: Tonic killed this one. The nose more or less disappeared. No aspect of the taste stood out especially. It was pleasant enough, but the tonic masked the gin more than it complemented it.

Martini: A Martini brings the spicy elements of this gin to the fore and nudges the floral notes into the background. There was the suggestion of a ‘Christmas orange’ type taste – I am thinking a clove studded orange stewed in spiced wine. Some of this may be coming from the orange bitters. It is a nicely balanced drink, if slightly delicate. That is, though it is easy to drink and tastes well balanced, at this ratio the vermouth threatens to dominate – and the vermouth undoubtedly would dominate if I was using the 40% alcohol by volume version. This gin could be a touch more robust. The perfect martini gin should easily stand up to a slug of vermouth. That said, this is a respectable modern gin that manages to be creative while remaining true to its roots. It is just a rather delicate take on classic gin. Overall a good Martini gin, with potential to convert non-Martini drinkers.

Aviation: Makes for a smooth and sophisticated Aviation. Rather than a distinct juniper bite, the juniper is just one brick in a larger wall of spice. It is smooth and balanced. The emphasis is on the subtler spicy botanicals, not citrus and juniper, and the aftertaste is satisfyingly long. The floral notes from the crème de violette are present without running riot. This reminds me of how Bombay Sapphire would taste in an Aviation if it worked. The orris root adds an further floral dimension. This gin makes a classy if subtle Aviation. It may not be the ultimate Aviation, but it is hard to fault.

Final Comment: A nice ‘modern’ Martini gin, but take care when mixing with it. This gin should be widely appealing, and does not depart too far from tradition.

Plymouth (41.2% vol)

This gin is very old, having been produced since 1793. Arguably Plymouth is a unique gin style that predates London Dry and has a softer character. The formula includes seven botanicals: juniper berries, lemon peel, orange peel, orris root, angelica, cardamom and coriander.

Nose: Rich citrus, and soft rather than sharp. Hints of spice behind the citrus. Very pleasant.

Taste: Pleasant multi-layered citrus flavor, backed up by some bitterness. The aftertaste is long, with a teasing tingling sensation on the tongue gradually resolving into bitterness. Orange aromas linger in the mouth.

Tonic: An underwhelming gin and tonic. My criticism would be that it is a bit sweet. The big emphasis on citrus means there is little to counter the sweet notes in the tonic (at least in the case of Schweppes). As with some of the other gins, the addition of tonic brought out the dry and aromatic botanicals, but they remained subtle. There are better gins out there for mixing with tonic.

Martini: Makes a light, smooth, and easy drinking Martini. You get multi-layered citrus up front, faint suggestions of spice, then bringing up the rear is a subtle but satisfying juniper and bitter citrus bite. The gin is not exactly assertive (unlike say Junipero), but nor is it the least cowed by the vermouth. The two balance nicely. Traditionalists would say it lacked juniper bite. Sophisticates would say it lacked complexity. Normal people would just quietly enjoy it. This is good, and possibly a gin for converting non Martini drinkers.

Aviation: This Aviation is smoother than some, but possesses enough bite to stop it becoming a simple ‘sweet and sour’ story. The bite tends towards citrusy rather than junipery though. It works fine, but there are better Aviation gins out there. While this gin is robust enough to work in a gin sour, its citrusy flavors might be more at home in a White Lady than an Aviation. That said, this gin passes the test OK.

Final Comment: An excellent all round gin. It has an easy drinking character and mixes exceptionally well. A good introductory gin for non gin drinkers, and a great standby for gin aficionados.

Tanqueray (40% vol)

Another old gin, dating back to 1830. The spirit is quadruple distilled, with the botanicals introduced during the final distillation. The only botanicals named are juniper, coriander and angelica, but presumably others are also in there.

Nose: Juniper, sharp citrus, and hints of other aromatics. The impression is rich, smooth, full, and slightly pungent.

Taste: I would call this a nice standard gin taste. Strong juniper, offset with citrus and suggestions of other aromatics. The mouth feel has some pleasant rich oiliness. The aftertaste lingers as light bitterness on the tongue. There is not much alcoholic burn. Still, it feels like it could be more intense. At times the taste seemed on the point of falling apart. This may have something to do with the fairly low proof (only 40%). I remember the full proof Tanqueray as being similar but far more intense and integrated.

Tonic: Tonic seems to bring out the citrus notes. It is pleasant but not very interesting. The Bombay has more happening, even if I do not especially like it.

Martini: I have mostly been using Plymouth in my Martinis recently, but Tanqueray is nicer than I remember. This Martini is smooth and rich, with a nice balance of juniper and vermouth aromatics. There is a not unpleasant oily feel on the tongue. The orange from the bitters blends in nicely but still makes its presence felt (and perhaps could be scaled back just a notch and still sensed). The aftertaste is clean citrus with some lingering bitterness. Everything is nicely balanced and integrated, and there is a good depth of flavor. The drink stays pleasant as it warms up. If I were to fault it I would say that it is a little lightweight, and that the vermouth dominates just a fraction this ratio. However, I suspect this feeling is more related to the low proof of New Zealand Tanqueray (40% vol) than the Tanqueray formula itself. I never noticed this issue with higher proof Tanqueray.

Aviation: A well balanced aviation. The gin stands up fine to the lemon juice and liqueurs, giving the drink a structure that makes it more than just sweet and sour. It is mostly about citrus and juniper bite though, with the subtler botanicals relegated to second place by the liqueurs and juice. I think I prefer the high proof Tanqueray in this drink. From memory the higher proof Tanqueray makes a very bracing Aviation with a limey edge.

Final Comment: A richly flavored gin that is good in Martinis and for general mixing. It is robust and traditional rather than sophisticated and creative. However, the high proof version seems (from memory at least) markedly superior to the 40% version.

Tanqueray 10 (47.3% vol)

This premium version of Tanqueray was introduced in 2000, apparently to cater to Martini drinkers and gin purists. It differs from other gins in that the fruit botanicals (including grapefruit, orange and lime) are added in fresh rather than dried form. Besides fruit the botanicals also include juniper and chamomile. The promotional material stresses that this gin can be enjoyed neat.

Nose: Less rich and intense than the standard Tanqueray. Citrus dominates, with juniper taking a back seat. Structurally it is more a delicate perfume than a solid aroma punch.

Taste: Sharp, intense and sweetish. Lime and juniper dominate. There is some fruitiness, a suggestion of gingery heat, and a light bittersweet effect. Overall it is smooth, delicate, and easy to drink. The flavor profile almost seems designed not to be mixed, despite the fairly high alcohol. There is an odd glycerin character – i.e. sweetness.

Tonic: Makes an extremely limey gin and tonic. This almost needs no citrus garnish. I probably prefer the standard Tanqueray with tonic. The Tanqueray 10 G&T takes the limey character of the standard Tanqueray version a step further but offers little else. The delicate profile is masked by the tonic and little but lime remains.

Martini: Smooth, rounded, with a big emphasis on fruity citrus. Not as bracing as some Martini gins, but pleasant and easy to drink, with a gentle attack and a lingering aftertaste. The vermouth dominates a little, masking the character of the gin somewhat. The vermouth should probably be reduced when making a martini with this gin.

Lillet Martini: Instead of reducing the vermouth, I made a Martini variation with Lillet in place of Noily Prat (2 oz gin, 1/2 oz Lillet, 5 drops orange bitters, lemon twist). The drink tended towards being sweet and fruity, but the Lillet let the characteristics of the gin shine through better than the vermouth did. The orange bitters was not entirely necessary, and could have been reduced to just a drop. A 50/50 split between Lillet and Noily Prat might produce a better drink.

Rin Quin Quin Martini: I made a Martini variation with 2 oz gin, ¼ oz Rin Quin Quin, ¼ oz Noilly Prat, 5 drops of Regans Orange Bitters, and a lemon twist garnish. I did not do a side by side comparison, but this seemed better than the Lillet version above. It was interesting anyway. The delicate gin let the peach flavors shine, and the scaled back dose of dry vermouth provided complexity without dominating too much.

Aviation: Not a great aviation gin. Thin rather than rounded. The fruity notes of the gin fuse with the fruity and floral liqueurs, and the contrast required to round out the drink is lacking. This threatens to become another vodka-cocktail ‘sweet-and-sour’ story. While the juniper bite is there, it is weak and one-dimensional. Those wanting a ‘sophisticated’ rather than a ‘robust’ take on the Aviation should probably go for Martin Millers, which is light handed but does the job. Tanqueray 10 falls flat.

Final Comment: The heavy citrus notes and sweetness probably probably make this an appealing gin to many. I would say the basic Tanqueay was the better gin though. It seems hard to call Tanqueray 10 a good Martini gin given that making a balanced Martini out of it requires reducing the vermouth to an almost infinitesimal amount. Tanqueray 10 is also not a versatile mixing gin – at least so far as traditional drinks are concerned. Tanqueray 10 is tasty, but its applications seem limited.

The Eccentric Scots

Hendricks (44% vol)

This product was launched in 2000, and so far as I know it started the recent trend towards floral gins. The initial distillation includes unspecified botanicals. The distilled spirit is then infused with the two very non-traditional flavors of rose and cucumber.

Nose: Big, soft, floral aroma. You can smell the rose. There also seems to be some citrus. Interesting, but hard to know what to make of it.

Taste: Sweet and floral, but with some bitterness to balance. For some reason I do not really detect the cucumber drinking it straight, though I remember noticing it in mixed drinks. Smooth with no unpleasant notes. The aftertaste is lasting and rose scented.

Tonic: The floral character seemed intensified. The cucumber became more noticeable, as did the spices. The tonic brought out dimensions I had not noticed when drinking it straight, and in a pleasant way. I am not sure if the floral character really matches a gin and tonic. A cucumber garnish would help cater to its unconventional identity. Very enjoyable, but too unconventional to be my ideal gin and tonic gin.

Martini: Very smooth and drinkable. The rose character is an interesting presence but does not fight with the other botanicals. An unconventional Martini, which for me prevents it from being “the ultimate Martini gin”. However, it is nice.

Aviation: This Aviation is floral, focused on the initial flavors and aromas, and weak on the aftertaste. It is less floral than Blackwood’s, and the rose notes possibly integrate with the violet better than the more eccentric floral characteristics of the Blackwood’s do. However, it still seems a bit confused and inconsistent with what an Aviation should be. There is just too much going on aroma-wise and not enough juniper. A poor Aviation gin.

Blackthorne: I made this with 1 ½ oz gin, ¾ oz Dubonnet, and ¾ oz Kirsch. Very smooth and pleasant. It may be my imagination, but the rose aromas in the gin seem to peek pleasantly around the edges of the kirsch.

Final Summary: This gin deserves credit for winning popularity through an unconventional approach. The floral flavor profile and lack of juniper prevent it from being an all-purpose mixing gin for traditional drinks. On the other hand, it makes a pleasant Martini or G&T, and has potential in recipes that are tailor made to match its special characteristics. Enjoy it, but use with caution.

Blackwood’s (40% vol – 2003 vintage*)

I cannot find the exact year this gin was launched, but it appears to have been shortly after 2000. The gin is produced on Shetland, a remote island located far off the northeast coast of Scotland. Shetland has a heavy Norse influence (geographically it is half-way to Norway) and this no doubt explains the Viking longboat on the label. Besides gin, the producers of Blackwood’s are also involved in establishing Shetland’s first commercial whiskey distillery. Blackwood’s is an unusual gin, with the botanicals including wild plants harvested on Shetland itself. The non-traditional Shetland sourced botanicals are sea pinks and meadow sweet (both flowers), and wild water mint. The producers have even experimented with seaweed. Other botanicals include angelica and coriander (harvested on Shetland), as well as citrus peel, cinnamon, nutmeg, liquorice, orris, juniper, tumeric and violet flowers (sourced elsewhere). This gin pours with a faint green tinge, almost like the sea.

Nose: Dry spices like Bombay Sapphire, but the much lower intensity lets fresher herbal scents show through as well. You can pick out mint. There is citrus too, but it is more a light presence than something that leaps out. An unusual gin with a funky and interesting nose.

Taste: Comes alive in your mouth, releasing a host of floral and herbal flavors. The floral character reminds me of Hendricks but is drier and more multi-faceted. I like it. The aftertaste hangs around as persisting bitterness, plus fruity and herbal flavors. If you were to criticize you would call the taste confused. I enjoy it though.

Tonic: I really enjoyed what the tonic did to this. The nose stayed floral but somehow the spices were dragged further to the fore. The sweet herbal dimensions were also exposed. With tonic this gin makes a very clean and unusual drink, filled with interesting but hard to pin down tastes.

Martini: Makes a nice martini, tending towards smooth, floral and slightly sweet. Not bracing and junipery enough be the ultimate martini gin, but tasty nonetheless. The bitter-sweet quality (from the herbs and flowers?) makes a gentler alternative to the classic juniper bite of more mainstream gins. This could be a Martini with potential to convert non Martini drinkers.

Aviation: This does not quite work. The result is not unpleasant, but it is too floral and too much about ‘sweet-and-sour’. As with the Bombay Sapphire, this gin simply lacks sufficient backbone to stand up to the liqueurs and lemon juice in this cocktail. Big floral notes fade away into an invisible aftertaste. That said, in a different drink the floral notes in this gin would probably mix well with floral liqueurs.

Jupiter Cocktail: This drink (1 ½ oz gin, ¾ oz dry vermouth, 1 tsp parfait amour, 1 tsp orange juice, stir, serve up) produced an intriguing result. The blossomy fragrance in the Parfait Amour works well with the wild flowers in the gin. A bitter-sweet character takes hold as the vanilla in the liqueur and the bitter herbs indulge in a bit of a play fight. The drink is greenish rather than purple. Maybe it should be renamed Neptune? Most enjoyable.

Final Summary: I find this gin very enjoyable, but the extreme floral flavors are not going to be for everybody. Obviously the floral character limits the versatility of this gin in terms of mixing traditional drinks. The alleged variation between vintages presents a further challenge*. An interesting and enjoyable product, but use with caution and be prepared for occasional disappointment.

* Blackwood’s is supposedly made to different formulations every summer depending on the vagaries of weather and distiller’s whim. There is a bit of online discussion about this gin varying greatly between different years. For example, short, wet summers during 2006 and 2007 led to the angelica component being reduced because little locally grown angelica was available. In short, it is an eccentric and variable product, so be prepared for inconsistencies over time.

The Unassuming Kiwis

South (40.2% vol)

This gin was launched by the 42 Below vodka company, famous for their off-beat advertisements. The juniper is scaled back to let other botanicals shine. Besides juniper the botanicals include coriander, orris, angelica, sweet orange, lemon peel, gentian, manuka berries and kawakawa leaves. Manuka and kawakawa are native to New Zealand and reputed to have medicinal properties.

Nose: Dry spices with just a little citrus. The nose is lighter than any of the other gins. Whatever is going on is quite subtle. The angelica makes its presence felt though. This reminds me of Bombay Sapphire more than anything else, but is much less intense.

Taste: Juniper bite, oily citrus, and dry spices that include an interesting peppery character. I am guessing the peppery taste comes from the New Zealand botanicals, manuka berries and kawakawa leaves, and likely the latter. This gin is pleasant to hold in your mouth and savor. The taste somehow seems not to resolve itself very well on swallowing though. The aftertaste carries a lingering peppery note, but is slightly one dimensional.

Tonic: The tonic removes whatever aroma this gin had. With tonic the taste became extremely light, with the peppery character remaining detectable. While perfectly drinkable, I suspect tonic kills this gin more than it complements it. Maybe this gin is just too light to start off with?

Martini: The gin does not give much resistance to the vermouth. The peppery finish manages to survive and is quite interesting. The drink lacks character but is not unpleasant. This gin needs a much bigger dose of aromatics, particularly juniper.

Aviation: The juniper bite is lacking, but the light pepper finish goes some way towards making up for it. The drink tastes too sweet. Not bad in a light-weight kind of way. A more assertive gin would work better.

White Lady: In a White Lady (1 ½ oz gin, ¾ oz lemon juice, ¾ oz Marie Brizard Triple Sec, 1 egg white) the pepper notes in the gin create a gentle ‘lemon and pepper’ effect, leaning heavily towards lemon. A cracked peppercorn in the shaker might further bring out the pepper aspect. The aftertaste is short. This is different and interesting, but a bit limp wrested.

Final Summary: Too lightweight to be truly interesting, despite having some potential. The inclusion of native New Zealand botanicals is a nice idea, but the product needs a much fuller flavor.

Blenheim Bay (42.5% vol)

This gin is produced by a company called Prenzel that is also involved in fruit liqueurs, specialty oils, vinegars and other gourmet food items. The botanicals include juniper, cassia, angelica, liquorice, hyssop, orris, coriander, elemi, bitter orange peel, sweet orange peel and lemon peel. After successes at one or two international spirits competitions the producers are touting this gin as the best in the world.

Nose: Unusual compared to the others. A distinctly sweet smell, like lemon candy. Strong citrus with lemon dominating. An odd ‘winey’ smell that I would not normally associate with gin – my guess is that it comes from a sweetening agent. The aroma is not well integrated, and seems on the brink of falling apart and perhaps revealing something unpleasant.

Taste: The immediate impression is of sweet citrus – mainly lemon. There was a sense of tasting the sweetness separately from the other flavors. It sounds silly but it was almost as though there was a ‘sweet’ flavor in there with everything else – ‘glycerin’ would be how I would describe it. Liquorice is discernible. This gin is not very integrated. It is like swallowing a cocktail of essential oils that then separate in your mouth. The aftertaste is alcoholic heat on the tongue plus lemon aroma on the roof of the mouth.

Tonic: The sweet citrus candy character was intensified by the tonic. The result was weird, and increasingly like drinking lemon oil rather than gin. This gin is just badly balanced.

Martini: The first impression was just ‘not very nice’. It is sharp, very lemony (but still the weird lemon candy taste) and a little soapy. It is simply not well integrated. The separate flavors seem to be fighting. It is also quite harsh.

Aviation: Not a good drink. Even the maraschino finds itself fighting with the omnipresent lemon candy taste. The bad qualities of this gin are sufficiently strong to show through even in a heavily liqueur flavored sour like the Aviation.

White Lady: A White Lady helps hide the flaws of this gin. It isn’t exactly good, but it is less bad than the other cocktails. It works because the lemony quality of the gin is at least pulling in the same direction as the triple sec.

Final Summary: A bad quality and unbalanced gin that is best avoided. Just possibly I am having a bad response to the Elemi, a fragrant oil with a ‘lemon and pine’ character used to flavor this gin. I don’t like Earl Grey tea, and perhaps Elemi is similar to oil of bergamot in taste. However, I think the gin is simply poorly made.

The Quiet American

Junipero (49.3% vol)

The long established Anchor Brewing Company became involved in distilling in 1993. Their regular product range includes several whiskeys as well as this gin. The specific botanicals in this gin are a secret, though clearly it has a heavy juniper profile.

Nose: A fairly light aroma, mostly of juniper, backed up by a little hot spice. It is simple and solid rather than elaborate and perfumed. Citrus does not feature.

Taste: Uncomplicated but intense juniper and spice taste. No citrus, just juniper and a little hot spice. It is quite a big taste, with the emphasis heavily on juniper. Bitter juniper lingers in the aftertaste. A taste like this almost demands to be complemented by something else. This gin should be pretty good for mixing.

Tonic: Such complexities as the gin has get masked by tonic, leaving behind nothing much besides a robust bitterness. Not bad, but you definitely want a citrus wedge to round out the flavor. I like a dash of bitters in a G&T anyway, but bitters become almost a requirement here. Tasty in a basic way.

Martini: Full flavored. A big juniper bite, without clever distractions. I would call this a good Martini gin. The taste is crisp and intense rather than ‘oily’ like Tanqueray. The vermouth definitely rounds out the flavor rather than fighting or overwhelming it. If you were to fault it you would say it was insufficiently complex. I think it is a nice gin for a vermouth heavy martini. The assertive character is boosted by the high proof.

Aviation: A nice bracing drink. The gin provides the juniper bite needed to balance the maraschino and crème de violette. Given the uncomplicated nature of this gin, the liqueurs get to dominate the initial taste, while the juniper takes over in the aftertaste. It works nicely. Some would say there not enough was going on. I am torn between calling this a great mixing gin and criticizing it for lacking complexity. I like its simplicity, and I like the fact it works when relegated to a supporting role; this is what gin should do, and too many modern premium gins fail in this regard. However, its simplicity threatens to become a flaw. Anyway, this gin has the backbone to work in a sour, somewhere a lot of premium gins fall flat.

Final Summary: A robust mixing gin. This should work well in any gin cocktail, with the high proof and strong taste providing ample backbone. Those wanting a complex and multi-layered gin may be disappointed though.

The Roundup

This exercise has been hugely educational for me, giving me a far better understanding of the nuances of gin. I encourage anyone reading to try something similar if they haven’t already. The gin market is characterized by increasingly diverse flavor profiles. While gin is growing in popularity, it is no longer simply ‘gin’. Making a good gin drink increasingly requires understanding individual brands. You cannot simply throw a random gin into a recipe and expect things to work.

The “unginlike” nature of many of the new premium gins is a concern. While the growing appreciation of gin is good, there has been a trend towards non-confrontational gins that are easy to appreciate with minimal mixing. Personally I am the type that likes to be smacked around occasionally. I also think a spirit that already tastes almost like a mixed drink is likely to be difficult to mix with.

Getting all academic for a moment, the growing popularity of gin seems to be accompanied by two dangers: vodkaization and balkanization. While many of the new gins are nice, they do not always have sufficient backbone to stand up to other ingredients in classic cocktails. I think of this trend towards smooth and lightly flavored gins as vodkaization. Equally, many of the new gins have eccentric flavor profiles that may be less versatile, at least in mixing old-school drinks, than traditional juniper focused gins. I think of this trend as balkanization. Inventiveness is fantastic, but care needs to be taken when using more eccentric products. Few bartenders appreciate the limitations of using non-traditional gins in traditional drinks.

The fact that many of the modern gins got drowned in the conservatively mixed Martinis and Aviations I tested here demonstrates my point. The classic Martini ratio is 2:1, so by mixing the Martinis in this comparison at 4:1 I was already being quite modern. Any serious gin should assert itself at this ratio. Furthermore, any serious gin should be able to handle the ½ oz of lemon juice I put in my Aviations. At 2 oz gin to 1 oz of combined lemon juice and liqueurs, my Aviations were already dry and gin oriented. For general purpose mixing then, and even classic Martinis, I prefer more traditional gins. The modern gins make a nice change occasionally, but recipes might need to be adjusted to compensate.

My favorites among the traditional gins were probably Tanqueray (at least the full strength version) for a full flavored gin and Plymouth for something lighter. That said, Broker’s and Junipero were both good, if perhaps slightly lacking in terms of balance and complexity. Beefeater is another good traditional gin, even if I did not include it here. Among the non-traditional gins I liked Blackwood’s and Martin Miller’s, with Miller’s being the more traditional and versatile of the two. Hendricks did not grab me so much, perhaps only because it was no longer new to me at the time of tasting. I can see why it is widely appealing though.  As for the New Zealand products, New Zealand has a way to go yet in terms of gin. Finally, I found Bombay Sapphire may have something to offer after all, despite me having long avoided it after bad experiences with Aviations and White Ladies. In fact Bombay Sapphire it not exactly bad, it is just a modern gin that does not work well in older recipes.

Feel free to post your own thoughts on this comparison. Do you agree that gin as a category is fragmenting into mild but often eccentric modern gins versus robust traditional gins? Do you have any comments on the gins I compared? What about the gins I did not cover? Which gins do you like to use in different drinks?

The Rough Riders take a break on top of San Juan Hill

Mixology Monday has rolled around and get and brought with it the theme of rum. The host of Mixology Monday XXVII is Trader Tiki. To be honest, this was never intended to be a Mixology Monday post. However, since the drink includes rum I guess I get a handy Mixology Monday entry for minimal effort.

I was rearranging my booze cupboard when I remembered I had a bottle of Kola Tonic that had never been used other than to make the Filmograph – from Ted Haigh’s Vintage Cocktails and Forgotten Spirits.

A few posts ago, while talking about the Early Fogcutter, I mentioned how small quantities of gin can do great things to rum cocktails. I mentioned the splash of gin found in early versions of the Cuba Libre. I repeated the story of how Teddy Roseveldt’s Rough Riders supposedly invented the Cuba Libre, noting that they could not have done so since Coca Cola was not sold in Cuba until some years after their departure. My eye fell upon the bottle of Kola Tonic and I wondered whether the Rough Riders might not have taken some type of Cola concentrate to Cuba with them.

This novel hypothesis offers a neat solution to the debate about the Rough Riders and the invention of the Cuba Libre. If they mixed the drink using a concentrate bought from the U.S. there would have been no need for coke to be available in Cuba at the time – simply mix the concentrate with soda water and voila! The locals were probably so impressed they decided to import Coca Cola themselves. Naturally, being Caribbean types who lacked the drive provided by a sense of Manifest Destiny, the Cubans let several years elapse before placing their order with the Coca Cola Corporation.

It makes perfect sense for the Rough Riders to have carried cola as a concentrate. They were on a military campaign, not a Caribbean holiday. Naturally they had to pack lightly – rifles, ammunition, rum, gin, bitters, Kola Tonic, silver cobbler shaker (no Boston shakers since glass was fragile and could become a hazard in the field). They would probably have been trained to live off the land for their lime supply.

So here is the concentrated version of the Cuba Libre, suitable for military campaigns, camping trips, and other occasions where circumstances demand you pack light. Note that this is indisputably the original version of the drink, as enjoyed by the Rough Riders themselves. You could equally well build this on ice and top with soda, but I think I like it served up. You can’t be fussing around with soda siphons as you prepare to assault San Juan Hill.

Rough Rider

1 ½ oz Cuban rum (Havana Club Blanco)

½ oz gin (Tanqueray)

½ oz lime juice

1 oz Kola Tonic (Roses)

1 dash Angostura Bitters

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Charge up nearest hill.

Kola Tonic is more or less a concentrated Coca Cola taste, but seems less sweet and more bitter. This product was once widespread, but today only remains a staple in South Africa. Fortunately Auckland has a large South African community so it is easy to find here.

It looked better full. . .

Pineau des Charentes is an interesting aperitif from France that I have only recently tried. It seems to be relatively unknown outside of France. Pineau des Charentes is generally drunk straight rather than being used used in cocktails. However, since I am interested in aperitif wines as cocktail ingredients I picked a bottle up to try it out.

Pineau des Charentes (also known simply as pineau) is said to have originated in the 16^th Century when wine must (i.e. unfermented grape juice) was accidentally poured into a cask containing cognac eau de vie. The cognac prevented the must from fermenting and the barrel was set aside as an unfortunate mistake. However, it was found that extended maturation saw the flavors of the wine must and cognac blend to produce a fine drink. Pineau has been a specialty of the Charentes region ever since. The Charentes region seems to be sub-region within Cognac by the way.

The regulations governing production of Pineau des Charentes are quite strict. For a start the product must come from the Charentes region. The grapes used for the must should be Ugni Blanc, Folle Blanche, Colombard, Sémillon, Sauvignon or Montils. Pressing must be light to ensure the pressed juice is of high quality. The cognac used for blending must be a minimum of one year old, 60% or higher alcohol by volume, and from the same vineyard as the must. According to the Comité National du Pineau des Charentes the finished product must be matured in oak barrels for a minimum of 18 months. Other sources mention minimum maturation of 8 months for red pineau and 12 months for white, so there seems to be some ambiguity on this point. Old pineau can be aged for 10 years or longer. The alcoholic strength by volume must be in the range 16-22%. Most pineau is a blend of roughly one quarter cognac to three quarters wine must, with an alcoholic strength of around 17%.

The vast majority of pineau is either consumed within France or exported to Francophone markets. Less than 25% of pineau production is exported, and over 90% of exports go to Belgium and Canada. In practice France and Belgium together consume almost all pineau production. Canada follows a very distant third, but still consumes several times more than the next largest pineau drinking nation. I am guessing Quebec is the center of Canadian pineau consumption. The French are keeping this one very much to themselves. So enough of facts and figures! It is time to open that bottle and see what the French are hiding. . .

The taste is mild but interesting, and unusual compared to other aperitif wines. No herbal flavors, bitterness or spice leap out at you. There is also little of the matured complexity of aperitif wines like port or sherry. This stuff is simply sweet, full bodied, and extremely ‘fresh’. It tastes like a very fruity wine, but also reminds me strongly of mead (honey wine). It is hard to believe it contains no honey since the honey taste is so strong. There is also some apple aroma, though again no apples were harmed in its manufacture. It has an unusual ‘primeval’ character, reminding me of the opening titles in Werner Herzog’s ‘Fitzcarraldo’, which describe the Amazon is described as a place where God never finished his creation. Yep, it tastes ‘unfinished’, in a good way. Pineau seems slightly rough-and-ready, with a plethora of interesting aromas that threaten to erupt all over the place and are disinclined to sit still. This stuff should have potential as a cocktail ingredient. I wonder why it isn’t used more?

In terms of mixing I would tend to think (roughly in order of potential) along the lines of cognac (the obvious choice), calvados, rhum agricole, pisco, Cuban rum, and whiskey. Pineapple juice also springs to mind, and perhaps Cynar could be another idea. This is not experience talking. I am just making some guesses as to what might work. I should also note that I did not dream up the rhum agricole angle. I bought a bottle of pineau partly so I could make a rhum agricole drink, the Pompadour, from the Esquire Drinks Database. Lets start with the Pompadour then. . .

The Pompadour
1 ½ oz rhum agricole vieux (I used St. James Ambre)

1 ½ oz pineau

½ oz lemon juice

This shows off the characteristics of both the rhum and the pineau. It is weird and unlike anything you are likely to have drunk. It is also fantastic. There is a full on aroma symphony, with the fresh and aromatic characters of both ingredients getting a chance to shine. You should seek out Pineau des Charentes for this drink alone.

Next up are a couple more pineau cocktail recipes I found online. I will include some experimental recipes of my own in a subsequent post. This next recipe is from the website site of a producer of Pineau des Charentes.

Charentais

2 1/2 oz pineau

½ oz cognac

¼ oz crème de framboise

1 tsp lemon juice

This smooth and tasty refresher is just lightly spiked pineau. The source of this recipe was unclear on whether a liqueur or eau de vie framboise was called for (mentioning both in different places). I did not have an appropriate eau de vie so I went for a liqueur. The lemon juice was added by me as an afterthought to give it some zing since it tasted a bit flat.

The next was something not unlike the above, but with the addition of a dash of pineapple juice and the whole then being brought to life with champagne. Again the recipe was from the website of a pineau producer.

Reaulais

2 oz pineau

½ oz cognac

½ oz pineapple juice

1 dash grenadine

2 oz champagne or sparkling wine

Shake everything except the champagne over ice. Strain into a glass and top with champagne.

A very rich yet slightly lively drink. There are no real surprises but it is most pleasant.

The next recipe was from a French language website – hence a little ambiguity over what liqueur is meant.

Ambassade

1 ½ oz pineau

½ oz gin

½ oz ‘orange liqueur’ (I used Grand Marnier)

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Another “take Pineau des Charentes and spike it with a little hooch” type of drink. It tastes good though. French style cocktails, by which I mean drinks that are heavy on aperitif wines and light on spirits, are tasty. Made with Grand Marnier the drink is rich and smooth. With Cointreau or some other triple sec it would probably be more fresh and fragrant.

I love the way the French can’t help adding London Dry Gin to things. It has to hurt them, right? Something like an “every time you spike your drink with gin, somewhere in the world a DGSE operative in scuba gear dies” kind of thing.

Sorry, I’m unrelenting about the Rainbow Warrior Affair aren’t I? The French are a fine race, and have punched well above their weight in terms of inventing delicious aperitifs. I’ve had better cocktails than this one, but I’ve also had much worse.

In my next post on Pineau des Charentes I will experiment with some recipes of my own.

Today I came across a creme de violette from Briottet. The Briottet version seems fuller flavored then how I remember the Benoit Serres. The Benoit Serres had a subtle (i.e. diluted) cognac base with a violet overlay, and may have been relatively high proof (25%?). The Briottet seems more like intense violet on a base of lowish proof (18%) neutral alcohol. It has a strong aroma, happily more reminiscent of a flower shop (or maybe potpourri) than a soap factory. On tasting you get a rich, smooth, fairly deep violet taste that lingers on the tongue. The finish is really quite long, and somehow never turns to soap. While I cannot taste anything besides violet, I still would not call the taste one dimensional.

I am hardly a crème de violette expert. I have only ever tasted two brands, and those several years apart. I may completely wrong about this comparison. Both Briottet and Benoit Serres seem to be good products. However, I think Briottet may pack a little more power and be more suited to mixed drinks. Most drinks using creme de violette require only small quantities, so you want to use a reasonably intense product.

After tasting some of the liqueur straight the obvious thing to do was to make an original recipe Aviation.

The Aviation is simply a gin sour sweetened with maraschino and crème de violette. The modern Aviation excludes the crème de violette, partly because it can be hard to obtain and partly because even back in the 1930s the recipe was sometimes printed without this ingredient. Most notably the influential Savoy Cocktail Book printed the recipe sans crème de violette. The Savoy contains many other misprinted recipes so this omission is as likely to have been a mistake as anything else.

Aviation Cocktail

2 oz gin (Plymouth)

½ oz lemon juice (strained – you want this drink as clear as possible)

1/3 oz maraschino liqueur (Maraska)

1/6 oz crème de violette (Briottet)

Shake over ice and double strain into a cocktail glass. If you don’t have crème de violette just use ½ oz maraschino.

You should end up with a potent, refreshing, and aromatic gin drink, colored the faint purple-grey of an overcast sky. Yep, it harks back to the early days of aviation, when planes flew through clouds as often as they flew above them. If it is not sweet enough try slightly increasing the liqueurs. Be careful not to overdo it though; both liqueurs are powerful tastes in their own right and can easily dominate the drink.

The crème de violette version is a definite improvement on the straight maraschino version. There is simply more going on as the violet adds an extra layer of aroma and complements the dry cherry flavors. The subtle purple tinge is also attractive.

The next thing I need to do is find some more drinks that use crème de violette. . .

Update: I also tried the Attention Cocktail from Jamie Boudreau’s site. I did not have a true absinthe handy, so I used Henri Bardoin pastis supplemented with a few drops of L’Extreme d’Absente Bitters. Those bitters are powerful, and using them like this gave a very different taste to using straight pastis. The really interesting thing in this drink is how the creme de violette stands up to the pastis/absinthe. Well worth a try anyway.

* Creme de Violette is hard enough to find that I should probably give the address of the shop, just in case someone else in Auckland reads this and wants to pick some up. The shop is Maison Vauron, located at 5 McColl St., Newmarket. They have a website at www.mvauron.co.nz, and you can phone them on 09 529 0157. Although they are mainly a wine merchant they sell quite a few interesting French aperitif type things – well worth checking out if you are interested in cocktails.

The Avenue

1 oz passion fruit juice*

1 oz calvados

1 oz bourbon

1 dash orange flower water (about ¼ tsp of a fairly mild Middle Eastern one – but could have added a lot less)

1 dash grenadine (about 1/4 tsp but could have added more)

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass

‘Perfumey’ seems the best word to describe this delightful drink. There are amazing smells from the passion fruit and the orange flower water. I find the bourbon and calvados blend into an interesting base, with the bourbon giving some simple sweetness in the background and the calvados a spirituous fruitiness that provides a nice foundation for the passion fruit. The taste is still fairly challenging though. It smells like heaven, but the taste gives you a jolt – a pleasant one of course.

Freshly squeezed passion fruit juice, while full of amazing flavors and scents, is slightly astringent. Therefore you can afford to be generous with the grenadine. The grenadine will also give a little body to counteract the slightly thin and grainy quality of the passion fruit juice. Be careful not to add so much that you lose the passion fruit color though!

The Jinx

1 oz passion fruit juice (recipe specifically said sweetened so I added a dash of Monin passion fruit syrup to the juice)

1 oz gin

1 oz calvados

1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass

This drink resembles The Avenue above, with the substitution of gin for the bourbon and bitters for the orange flower water. The gin is a tasty swap. It is not necessarily better, but it is definitely good. I am not sure on the bitters though. I wonder if orange bitters would work better, or even peach. Angostura seems to distract a little from the delicate passion fruit. But maybe I just added too much.

Comparing different drinks made with common products is a very interesting exercise. My first impression of this drink was that some of the taste that I had mistaken for orange flower water in the previous drink was actually the passion fruit. Passion fruit really is that aromatic. No wonder the Chinese word for passion fruit literally means ‘hundred fragrance fruit’ (百香果).

I think I may prefer this drink to the above. It may be less aromatic, but it seems a touch more robust.

The Melody

1 ½ oz gin

¾ oz passion fruit juice

¾ oz Lillet

1 tsp Cointreau

1 tsp calvados

Here the calvados becomes a mere accent and the Lillet softens the drink up and helps everything blend together. The passion fruit juice might need a touch of sweetening, but this is a smooth drink, smooth to a fault if anything. The passion fruit takes center stage, with the other flavors just providing little touches of color.

The above three drinks were all decent. The Melody was nice but perhaps a touch one dimensional. I rather liked the Jinx.

The last drink I tried was a bit of an oddball and I am including it more for the sake of completeness than as a recommendation.

Sardi’s Delight

1 ½ oz gin

¼ oz lemon juice

¼ oz passion fruit juice (in fact I just added about a ½ oz of pulp)

¼ oz grenadine

¼ oz pastis

1 dash Angostura Bitters

Shake over ice and double strain into a cocktail glass.

Like a lot of drinks with a decent dose of pastis this tasted of. . . pastis. There was something interesting in the passion fruit and pastis combination, but for the sake of balance the pastis needed to be toned way down. I think passion fruit and pastis would be better companions in a Tiki drink style concoction that contains a decent slug of passion fruit juice and a dash or two of pastis. Maybe something like a Monkey Gland, made with passion fruit instead of or as well as orange could also be interesting?

* I extracted juice from the fruit by cutting them open, then putting the pulp in a tea strainer resting over a container and pressing with a muddler. You will need to give the juice a few minutes to drip through the strainer, and it is difficult to get a good extraction (the pulp tends to slide away from the muddler than give up its juice), but each fruit should comfortably yield up to 1/2 oz of juice. With a better method of extracting the juice you could probably get a little more.

Disney designed the Flying Tigers decal.

I found this one on CocktailDB while looking around for drinks using grenadine. In my post on The Fogcutter I mentioned how small quantities of gin can make an interesting contribution to rum cocktails. Since this drink is another example of that idea I thought it would be worth a try.

This drink appears to have been named after the legendary Flying Tigers. The Flying Tigers were a squadron of U.S. volunteer pilots who assisted China in resisting Japanese aggression before and during WWII. They were based in Kunming (the capital of Yunnan province in southwest China), and commanded by Claire Chennault. Their successes became the stuff of legend, and included protecting the inhabitants of Kunming against Japanese bombing raids for the entire duration of their deployment there, adopting novel tactics that saw them massively outperform the RAF in the defense of Burma, and allegedly destroying nearly 300 Japanese planes for the loss of just 14 of their own pilots. The Flying Tigers formed a crucial part of China’s air defenses, and were a rare U.S. success story during the bleak period of Japanese advances that followed Pearl Harbor.

Flying Tigers “Blood Chit” worn on the back of pilots’ flying jackets: the Chinese reads “This foreigner has come to China to help in the war effort. Soldiers and civilians, one and all, should rescue, protect, and care for him”

The unit had a reputation for hard drinking, though not to the extent that discipline broke down, and some members of the unit were dismissed by Chennault for drinking. One member to be dismissed was Gregory Boyington, whose alcoholism eventually saw him sent to New Zealand for four months to ‘recuperate’. Incidentally, Boyington would go on to lead the Black Sheep, the colorful Solomons based air squadron partly made up of pilots stood down from their original units over disciplinary issues.

I have been to the Flying Tigers museum in Chongqing and even bought a Flying Tigers t-shirt. Maybe it is time to try the cocktail?

1 ¾ oz light rum (Havana Club)

½ oz gin (Plymouth)

¼ oz grenadine (homemade)

1 dash aromatic bitters

This is a sweetish but not uninteresting drink. It tastes heavily of rum, but with the grenadine giving lots of body and fruitiness. The gin and bitters add some light spicy and herbal notes to make things interesting. It may not be hugely exciting, but it shows what gin can do when used as a flavoring rather than the base spirit. It is also one of those handy drinks that does not require any hard to find ingredients – provided you either have good grenadine or can put up with average stuff.

Incidentally, how is this for coincidence? The Rough Riders were a unit of U.S. volunteers who allegedly invented the Cuba Libre, which allegedly combines rum and gin. The Flying Tigers were a unit of U.S. volunteers with an associated cocktail, invented by themselves for all we know, that again combines rum and gin. Spooky? Absolutely! It was probably after a discovery like this one that early man first got all philosophical and asked himself whether the universe had an intelligent designer.

Having made some quality grenadine, the next step is to find some drinks to try it in. Three drinks immediately come to mind, the Clover Club, the Pink Lady, and the El Presidente. The Clover Club and Pink Lady are simply grenadine sweetened and flavored gin sours, while the El Presidente is a complex rum, orange Curacao and vermouth affair that gets a gentle lift from a teaspoon of grenadine.

Recipes follow:

Clover Club

1 ½ – 2 oz gin

½ oz lemon or lime juice (juice of about half a lemon)

1 tsp – ½ oz grenadine (some recipes call for up to an ounce!)

1 egg white

Give a long shake over ice and double strain into a cocktail glass.

This one takes its name from a 19^th Century club of which it was the house cocktail. Made with good grenadine it is a simple but very respectable affair. The grenadine should add some pleasant fruit flavors as well as balancing the lemon. The egg white is essential. Be generous with the grenadine in this one since that is what gives the drink its character. The egg white also means you can add a reasonable amount without making things too cloying. Between the grenadine and the egg, the gin will slide down very easily indeed.

Pink Lady

1 ½ oz gin

½ oz calvados (or applejack)

½ oz lemon juice

1 tsp grenadine

1 egg white

Give a long shake over ice and double strain into a cocktail glass.

This drink adds uses apple brandy to lure the conservative Clover Club on a bit of an adventure. Nobody ends up getting hurt, and in fact the new combination works beautifully. The apple brandy now takes the lead, but good quality grenadine still helps add an additional layer of flavor.

El Presidente

1 ½ oz Cuban Rum (Havana Club 3 Anos works well, as does the Anejo Blanco)

¾ oz orange Curacao

¾ oz dry vermouth

1/2 – 1 tsp grenadine

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

This is a great Cuban drink dating from the early 20th Century. There seem to be a few variations floating around. Some use triple sec. Some use sweet vermouth. I think the above version is the original. Whatever variation you use, a good quality grenadine should come into its own here. The drink is already fairly sweet and does not particularly need an extra dose of sugar. What the grenadine does is add a little fruitiness to lift the drink (not unlike the lemon twist garnish), and improve the mouth feel.