Category: gin

A Few Thousand Words on the Aviation, In German

In the current issue of Mixology Magazine, the premier German-language bartending magazine, I have a big story about the Aviation cocktail.

It covers a bunch of the history of the cocktail – how it originally had creme de violette and then the recipe was probably copied incorrectly and it was not made the right way again for decades. (I wrote a brief blog entry about that here.)

Then it delves into bartenders' preferred types of gins, maraschino liqueurs, and creme de violette, plus a whole bunch of variations on the cocktail. It includes recipes from Sierra Zimei, Humberto Marques, Brendan Dorr, Jacob Grier, and Olivier Jacobs.

It doesn't appear to be online yet, so I hope you German-reading print subscribers will enjoy it.

May 28, 2012
All About Orris: Harvest in Tuscany

In Tuscany on a botanical trip with Bombay Sapphire, we learned how the orris root is grown and processed to use in the gin.

Orris root is the rhizome of the Iris flower. Here in Tuscany they are grown on sloping hills between rows of olive trees. Nice space.

These iris flowers are not grown for their beauty, unlike other iris varieties, but for the quality of their rhizomes.

The rhizomes are bulbs on the base of the plants. Skinny roots shoot off the rhizomes. These are cut off.

The plant tops, with a tiny portion of the rhizome attached, are replanted.

The orris is then hand peeled.

Then it is left out to dry in the sun.

Later it is aged. The floral aspect comes out only after this, when it is extracted into gin or perfume.

June 3, 2011
Picking Juniper Berries in Tuscany: A Photo Album

In May I visited Italy to learn more about the botanicals used in Bombay Sapphire. From Tuscany they get both the juniper berries and orris used in the gin.

In the rolling hills of Tuscany at high elevations where there are few trees and many wildflowers are found the juniper bushes.

They're kind of ugly, sprawling little bushes.

They're full of clusters of berries- more than I'd expect. We were there during the off season, so not many are the blue color of ripe berries.

Juniper is harvested by hand, using wide round baskets and short sticks.

They stick the baskets beneath a branch and whack it with the stick so that the blue, ripe berries fall off but the green, unripe ones do not.

Some of the needles stick to the berries. Any green ones that get in are sorted out later.

I tried it, but wasn't very good at it.

But then again, there weren't actually any ripe berries to harvest at this time of year.

June 2, 2011
Sloe and So It Goes

With The Bitter Truth Sloeberry Gin joining Plymouth Sloe Gin in the category of sloe gins that have sloes and gin in them, your Sloe Gin Fizz doesn't need to be full of false advertising.

That's basically what I talk about in my most recent post for Fine Cooking.

April 4, 2011
Germany, Ensslin, Aviation, and Blue Cocktails

My latest post on FineCooking.com is up. It's typical of my thought process: I was going to write about my time in Germany and ended up talking about a German bartender who wrote an American cocktail book in which the Aviation cocktail was first mentioned and later forgotten.

Read it here.

(I took this picture- not bad for me!)

October 19, 2010
The Historically Inaccurate Gimlet

My second piece on the FineCooking.com cocktail blog is up. It is a rather simple fresh lime Gimlet recipe. I know that the Rose's lime cordial Gimlet is historically accurate, but I mean seriously, yuck.

September 19, 2010
Home Bar Recommendations: One of Each

When Jonny Raglin and Jeff Hollinger were looking to open Comstock Saloon (hopefully this month), they had a big limitation to work with: the size of the back bar. It only has room for one or two types of each base spirit. This is a challenge for Raglin in particular as between his former post as Bar Manager at Absinthe and his consultant gig at Dosa on Fillmore he was working with probably 30 different types of gin alone.

This inspired a story I wrote for the April edition of 7×7 magazine. I also spoke with Martin Cate of Forbidden Island who had the luxury of choosing over 200 rums for the bar, but that didn't leave room for much else. Before opening he sent out an email requesting advice on one of each tequila (blanco, reposado, anejo) for the bar. I also spoke with Marcovaldo Dionysos, who was very selective when choosing the bottles for Clock Bar. He said he had to balance familiar brands that consumers know with less-recognized spirits he'd prefer to work with.

In the story I asked each of Raglin, Cate, and Dionysos to pick one of
each- vodka, tequila, rum, whisky, and gin- that would work the best in
the most cocktails, while also being good enough for sipping. The
results should point home mixologists who may also not have room for 30 brands of gin toward the one bottle to buy.

The Ultimate Five-Bottle Bar, Perfect for Apartment Dwelling

by Camper English

What happens when the city’s top bartenders are forced to choose? Introducing the ultimate five-bottle bar, perfectly sized for apartment dwelling.

Click the link above to read the story. In the print edition there are also recommendations for one each of sweet and dry vermouth and an orange liqueur/triple sec.

April 1, 2010
Gin Definitions

A few months back I attended a seminar hosted by Plymouth and Beefeater gins. This was held on the same day the new EU definition of London gin became law.

The law sets down three categories of gin by production method- not by flavor. They are:

Gin- Can be basically vodka with flavors added at bottling time.

Distilled Gin – Flavors are distilled with the neutral spirit, then additional flavors may be added after distillation.

London Gin – Flavors (must be natural, not artificial) are distilled with the neutral spirit, then nothing may be added after distillation except more neutral spirit and water and a tiny amount of sweetener. You will notice that it does not need to be distilled in London.

The full definitions are here.

I was confused about one point after the seminar so I thought I'd clear it up here. Gins like Hendrick's and Martin Miller's are not London gins because they add flavors after distillation (so they are distilled gins). Gins like Bombay Sapphire that are made in Carterhead stills (and meeting all the other requirements) are London gins, though they are made a little differently than gins like Beefeater and Plymouth.

In the Carterhead still, botanicals can be placed in the vapor stream of the still instead of (or in addition to) putting them in the pot and infusing them in the neutral spirit. This adds a lighter touch of the botanicals to the gin. Initially I thought this disqualified gins distilled in this method from being labeled London gins. (I was thinking that if the botanicals were not in the pot, it was considered post-distillation.) But that's not true. I guess if it's all contained within the still set-up it's not considered post-distillation.

In the end, there are good and interesting gins in each category, and the categories don't account for flavor. Increasingly people are referring to gins as traditional vs. "new west" in style; boldly juniper-forward in flavor versus lighter in style with non-traditional flavorings and usually less dominated by juniper. So perhaps a gin officially labeled as a London gin can also be "new west" in flavor.

August 27, 2009