National Gin Day

[srw]

I'm having a little snifter of Sloe Gin 1 from last year. I might well move on to a shot of Sloe Gin 2, made with muscovado instead of granulated sugar.

 

[Smithbat]

Glad to know rhubarb gin works. I have been planning on making some

I have the first cutting of rhubarb from my garden. How does one make it?

 

[Smithbat]

Mu precious gin collection. I can't decide which to have...

 

[Hill Wimp]

I'm having a little snifter of Sloe Gin 1 from last year. I might well move on to a shot of Sloe Gin 2, made with muscovado instead of granulated sugar.

If you make some this year try not to add sugar unless it's really sour after a few months of steeping. I rarely add sugar to mine anymore after finding my Grandmothers instructions.

 

[Piemaster]

Mu precious gin collection. I can't decide which to have...

Just work your way from left to right . Just remember if you don't manage it all the way across it doesn't matter, it's gin, not women. The ones you miss won't get jealous and will still be there when you get back to them.

 

[hopless500]

I have the first cutting of rhubarb from my garden. How does one make it?

I was planning on chopping some up and adding to gin with sugar. I'll probably also try cooking it with sugar before adding just to compare.

 

[TheDoctor]

Fever Tree is £1.70 where I am. Bottlegreen is £1.50 iirc. That's for a 75cl bottle, I think. Schweppes is about £1.20 a litre, and supermarket own brand is about 40p a litre, or 3 for a pound is not unusual.
As for actually, you know, drinking the stuff, I go for a double (5 cl) with 1 cl of elderflower, either Bottlegreen or Waitrose, maybe a drop of rosewater if I'm feeling floral, and top the glass up with tonic. Lemon optional. I use a biggish flute, and they live in the fridge with all the other ingredients.
I have clearly waaaaaaaay over-thought this!

 

[jayonabike]

Had a few Negronis tonight made with Tanqueray no.10 gin

 

[swee'pea99]

Damn. I didn't even know it was on. Now there's a whole year to wait till it comes round again. Always liked Noel Coward's take on the Martini: “a perfect Martini should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy.”

 

[slowmotion]

Gordon's is rubbish ,beefeater is Meh , however the fancy new stuff ( Hendricks tanquery Bombay saph ) is rather good

Sipsmith is one to try

Fever tree rocks tho.

Utter crap! Gordon's rocks. Bombay Sapphire has lingering hints of stale bathwater.

.....and please do use tins of Schweppes regular tonic, not that hateful low fat stuff....

 

[slowmotion]

Damn. I didn't even know it was on. Now there's a whole year to wait till it comes round again. Always liked Noel Coward's take on the Martini: “a perfect Martini should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy.”

He had a point. Vermouth is utterly vile. It takes two days to get the taste out of your mouth.

 

[Piemaster]

.....and please do use tins of Schweppes regular tonic, not that hateful low fat stuff....

The only way to buy tonic to accompany gin. My wife drinks tonic, but she insists on slimline stuff - the cheapest supermarket stuff will suffice for that.

He had a point. Vermouth is utterly vile. It takes two days to get the taste out of your mouth.

I found gin quite a good way of cleansing the palette. Well, not so much cleansing it, but after several of them it didn't seem to matter quite so much.

 

[srw]

Fevertree "naturally light" tonic is really rather good. It contains "fruit sugar", which I suspect is just another named for refined fructose, but it tastes more balanced to me than the basic version. They also do decent "Mediterranean" and "Elderflower" tonic waters.

Last summer I did a cross-tasting experiment of Fevertree and Fentimans tonic waters. My memory is that with the gin I preferred the Fentimans, but without I preferred Fevertree. Unfortunately like most of the experiments I do I didn't actually bother to write down the answer. I find keeping a bottle of gin in the house rather dangerous, so I don't usually do it.

As I mentioned we've got home-made sloe gin (using Gordons as a base, because we were buying the gin on a ferry and that's what they had). We've got a rowan (mountain ash) tree in the garden, so there are another couple of batches of that, which are beginning to get rather nicely rounded, as well as bottles of rosehip vodka and blackberry vodka. If I'd got to the elderberries before the birds there might well be one based on them too. They tend to drink better as mixers than neat - I've had a lovely negroni-alike using the rowanberry gin in place of the traditional bitters.

 

[subaqua]

[QUOTE 4318526, member: 259"]How much does it cost where you live? Fever Tree tonic costs about a million pounds a litre here and it's exactly the same as Schweppes, but the adverts involve twats with weird beards.[/QUOTE]
Same price but can only get Schweppes in bottles. Flat tonic just isn't on . I am not a snob.....

 

[slowmotion]

Same price but can only get Schweppes in bottles. Flat tonic just isn't on . I am not a snob.....

You can get small cans of Schweppes tonic, both proper and low-fat, in any supermarket. They are of a sufficient size to suggest that you should empty the can for a single drink. A wonderful side-effect is that you tend to pour in an overgenerous measure of Gordon's to prevent the G&T being hopelessly diluted with the unimportant stuff.

Lime please, barman....