If you guys don’t know the way into my heart or the way to get me to start encouraging, “Everybody get naked,” like Apu, it is very simple. Make me pretty much any drink where gin plays center stage. I love gin.
I had never had gin until I was at UMBC (unlike wine, beer, malt liquor, tequila, vodka, rum, amaretto, absinthe, sambuca, scotch, Pimm’s and whatever else I had in England and illegally in the US). I was sick and Michael was being a good doctor and plying me with vitamin C tablets and plenty of ginseng. I asked him to make me a drink to cheer me up, he came down to my suite with tonic, bitters and a bottle of gin. It was the single most refreshing drink I’d ever tasted. Not that I had a sophisticated palate, I frequently mixed vodka with any fruit juice I had on hand and chugged.
In terms of the top-shelf gin, I’ll always choose Tanqueray above all else (although I like Bombay Sapphire). But Michael and I keep an enormous plastic bottle of Gordon’s around since we’re such drunks. Well, Gordon’s and Tanqueray are made and distributed by the same company. So we both figured it was time for a taste test.
We arranged to do four trials, having one sample each trial of Tanqueray and Gordon’s. We mixed tonic with the gin 2:1. We did not do a control trial, partly because we were running low on Tanqueray.
The results were such that Michael picked Gordon’s for every trial, and I picked Gordon’s for three out of four trials. I was surprised, Michael wasn’t. Looks like we’ll be drinking good old Gordon’s from now on – instead of blowing lots of cash on bottles of Bombay or Tanqueray.
Personally, my favorite gin is still Beefeater. What can I say, I’m a proper bird. Also, I have a very adorable pin from a charity shop in Cambridge of a little smiling character that says Beefeater. Don’t know if that’s to do with the gin, but it is pretty much my favorite pin ever.
5 Comments
it all depends on how you’re having it! (we were having this conversation here yesterday). I really liked Q[uintessential] when I had it in seattle, but it’s pricier than Sapphire! I am starting to think I should keep a bottle of Bombay Sapphire around for the martinis, and something less expensive for the g&t.
I love gin now, but I never liked it in college. It took me some time to come ’round. One of my college friends still says, “it’s like drinking pine-sol.” Not quite. Mm juniper.
That would be your favorite gin, wouldn’t it you bisexual you.
Hey, look, it’s Kara and Mikhail make sexual jokes on each other’s blogs day! We should do this more often.
Gin and tonic FTW. What sort of tonic you guys use? One day I got this real cheap and nasty ‘diet’ shizzle from a low-end British supermarket called ‘Somerfield’ and my god it tasted like ass. Never again
We generally have a choice between Schweppes, Seagram’s, Canada Dry and whatever crappy store brand is on offer. We usually buy Diet Schweppes because it’s OK and we don’t want the calories from the non-diet stuff.
I bought a store-brand tonic from the local grocery store once (not diet or anything) and it was disgusting.
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