Category: gin
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A Great Big Story about Gin & Tonics in Saveur
In the June/July issue of Saveur Magazine, I have a bunch of drink stories. The biggest, longest one, which took me a few months of research to put together, is on the Gin & Tonic.
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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.
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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-…
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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.
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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…
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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…