Gin Daddies

After what feels like an eternity with no sense of taste, this flu thing has finally gone! Back to the gin tasting.

Remembering back to when I was a child, everything seemed much bigger than it is now (some exceptions of course).  I’m pretty sure when we had snow, we had proper snow, feet of the stuff.  It seemed like the cars were buried in it and unfortunately the schools never closed.  We had, what seems like a now mythical person, called a caretaker who made sure the heating was working, the pipes were not frozen and the playground was gritted.  This didn’t stop the fun however, we still spent hours with sledges or whatever was to hand – my personal favourite were the roadwork barriers that happened to be left on the hill after some older kids had “acquired” them.  These things had rails on the side of them and went faster than any sledge, so fast you would end up going across the road and under the fence the other side.  Health and safety I hear you cry. Where were my parents? Well, it was the 80’s/90’s and my dad was right with me, in fact, he made sure it was always safe for me, by taking the first go and many more after!  He’s a bigger kid than me at heart and the reason he features in all of my childhood snow day memories.

Enough of the reminiscing, back to present day.  We live in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hills, if we wanted to get out of here when it snows it would have to be for an emergency. With this in mind and the fact I have 3 little toast monsters living in my house, we actually needed some more bread and milk, a day before snowmageddon arrived.  The wife accomplished this seemingly impossible mission with some ease, even with the panic buying hoards.  I don’t remember this when it snowed when I was a kid, maybe I was oblivious to it, but it never seemed like the country ground to a halt, shops had enough bread and milk and people didn’t panic buy like some crazed, half-wit, president was about to press the red button. Anyway, my wife managed to source the required essentials, I however, failed to think about my tonic and fruit levels.  A rookie error! Be gone snow, it’s getting desperate, I only have two bottles of tonic left.

While I wait for the snow to thaw so I can get to the shop for more tonic, it’s about time I helped my kids create some of their first snow day memories. Outside we go, wrapped up so much they can barely bend their limbs, sledges under their arms.  One of them decides to climb up into their tree house as the slides are covered with snow.  Then I have an idea, put the sledges at the bottom of the slides.  A couple of failed runs working out how far they fly through the air before they will land on the sledge and I think we are set.  As they hurtle down the slides to their inevitable painful landing, I see the look of sheer excitement on their faces and as much as I want to capture this on my phone (it might be worth £250 if it all goes wrong), I want to just savour this moment without a screen in front of my face.  They hit the sledges at the same time and slide across the garden. It was textbook! They loved it.  I wish my arse would fit down the slide so I could have a go.

Cold and tired after a huge snowball fight, I think a well-deserved G&T is in order.  It seemed fitting, given the current weather, that my gin of choice is made from Icelandic spring water, but distilled in the UK.  I first discovered Martin Millers gin while on holiday with the wife in Portugal and it very quickly became my go to gin.  I always have at least one bottle of this in the house at any time and it has converted many of my non gin drinking friends to the dark side.  And that for me is what makes it special, Martin Millers have taken a classic gin flavour profile and executed it with perfection! There is no single botanical that over powers another, yet it’s possible to taste just about every one of them individually.

The remarkable thing for me is the way it leaves your mouth, clean, no alcohol after taste or burning sensation. The only time I have experienced something similar is with beer and that was put down to the water quality, so maybe this is the reason Martin Millers use Icelandic spring water?  The balanced taste creates a perfect base to use with a whole variety of tonics and garnishes, whether you are looking to compliment the citrus flavours from the lemon, orange and lime peel or the deeper warmer flavours from the licorice root, cassia and nutmeg.  For me Martin Millers is the bench mark that I compare other gins to.

Price Paid

Available in most supermarkets or online for around £25.

Tastes Like

A crisp, but flavourful, traditional tasting gin, with great balance and is easily drinkable.

Would go well with

Most things!  My personal favourite is tonic, orange peel and a couple of star anise.

Recommended?

Most definitely.  The end of the world would have to be upon us for me not to have a bottle nearby.

My dad is a rum fiend. This isn’t an exaggeration, if Johnny Depp hadn’t of been cast as Jack Sparrow, dad would’ve been donning a crappy dreadlocked wig and giving it his best “yo-ho-ho” if he thought it would get him more of the sweet sweet rumbullion. Dad is an avid collector of it – at the last count he had over 50 bottles which he proudly displays in a cabinet in the living room. Luckily for my brother and I he doesn’t open any of them unless we do it first and even if we do, the second the seal is cracked he is online ordering a replacement. This isn’t to say he doesn’t drink any, he just drinks the more accessible (cheaper) options available in the supermarket.

The petty grievance I have with dads obsession is that he will serve every one of the rums in the same way – over ice, with coke and a slice of lime. Blasphemous! How can every rum be complimented by the exact same recipe? It doesn’t make sense considering all the different maturation techniques involved in the rum-making process. This thought led me to reflect on how I drink gin, most of the time it is the same – ice, lime, tonic. Ice. Lime. Tonic. Ice-lime-tonic. It’s almost a mantra, but not necessarily a healthy one.

I had a flashback to when a younger (and less grey-haired) me worked in a pub in the centre of Bristol. The pub itself had a very “local” feel to it, the proprietors at the time – Jason a 20-stone insouciant-when-drunk Irishman and Samantha, a 8 stone whip-smart Essexgirl, did a fantastic job at cultivating this culture. 15 years on I still can remember what the locals drank; Brian the retired bricky drank half pints of Bass exclusively, Tony the ex-cop crown court clerk would come in every lunchtime to have 2 pints of Thatchers Original for lunch and a brown-haired-with-frosted-tips Adam came in after working at the hotel next door to have a lager top. I loved working at the pub, it was relatively easy work, you got to speak to loads of different people and the best part is that you could drink on the job and get away with it!

The pub I worked in was ostensibly an ale house although in the time I was working there the parent company was trying to change the image into a more chic wine bar-esque pub, swapping the KP nuts for overpriced olives in Kilner jars served in £4 a pop ramekins. A lot of the “old guard” locals at this point had abandoned ship to more traditional pubs in the neighbourhood although there were still the staunch hangers-on. These few kept on coming back, especially on Sundays to listen to the traditional live jazz which Jason the landlord insisted on. The jazz itself wasn’t that good to my young ears, especially with the mega hangovers I used to sport regularly. The jazz felt like a rusty nail being driven into my brain, already fragile with a headache and ready to burst. Most of the audience on these Sundays spent around 2 hours in the pub during which the men would buy half a pint of ale and a gin and tonic for their other halves. One of the barmaids would reply in an almost Pavlovian manner to the request of a gin and tonic with “Ice and a slice?”. I can’t understate how much I hated this phrase. It almost wound me up as much as the jazz compere, after finishing his set would always say “Go home to your Sunday joint…whether you smoke it or cook it, it’s entirely up to you” which would cause a rousing applause from the elderly audience. Each week I wanted to jump over the bar and bludgeon him with his drumsticks when he said this phrase.

The problem with the question “Ice and a slice?” is that it is so flippant, almost obnoxious, it is a false choice you are giving someone. The person posing the question has already formulated an answer independent of the recipients’ response. If I asked someone whether they wanted ice and a slice in any drink, it would be me who would be deciding a) how much ice and b) what kind of slice went in it. Back in the late nineties I doubt it would have mattered, you got served gin one way only – Gordon’s with a couple of pieces of ice, lukewarm tonic and a slice of lemon which if you were lucky was only two days old. I believe this seemingly innocuous question was the reason why I stayed away for gin for so long, it just didn’t seem appealing what was being served.

Today gin is a big business for any self-respecting pub or bar and most bartenders give the drink the respect it deserves with a whole medley of “slices” and other accoutrements served with it. Around 3 years ago the missus and I were up in Edinburgh with the family, we were staying in the Newtown area off of Queens Street and we had met a friend in a local bar. I was scanning the shelves behind the bar for their selection of gins when one stood out as it had a red asterix on the front of it, I couldn’t quite make out the name but it looked Gaelic. I asked the barman if I could see the bottle and he passed it to me – “CAORUNN {ka-roon}” the bottle proclaimed. I asked for gin and tonic with this gin and it got served with two crushed juniper berries and a slice of apple. With the first sip I was blow away by the crispness of the gin, the citrus zing makes you smack your lips after every sip and the lingering flavour on the pallet is floral. As I finished the first glass within a minute of ordering, I knew I had found a lifelong favourite to enjoy. I was really thrown by the slice of apple in the gin which accentuated the citrus flavours and offset the juniper taste. It was a little treat at the end of the drink to eat the apple as a lasting reminder of the time spent in the company of such a lovely gin.

Caorunn like many other Scottish gins is made in a whisky distillery, while the whiskies take years to mature in casks, gin can be produced relatively quickly and in the same quantities in a fraction of the time. Caorunn is produced in the Balmenach Distillery in the Speyside region of Scotland on the northern tip of the Cairngorms national park. It is made using a base grain alcohol and boasts eleven botanicals, most notably the Rowan berry – the drinks’ Celtic namesake. The subtle sharpness of the taste is due to dandelion leaf in the blend and the floral notes on the nose are unmistakable Heather. The base botanicals of angelica, coriander seed, lemon and orange peel are perfectly balanced to suit most tonic waters, especially sweeter ones. Caorunn is one of very few gins who could survive the dreaded question “Ice and a slice?”. I have been known to drink it with lime, lemon and also orange peel – it goes well with all three. Caorunn is no doubt one of my favourite gins and can always be found in my cupboard, the one downside is that it is too easily drinkable!

Price Paid

Available in most supermarkets from £28 – £30.

Tastes Like

Meeting a person for the first time, knowing at that very moment you will have many grand adventures together.

Would go well with

A meat charcuterie – parma ham especially.

Recommended?

Of course.

Wow, our first venture into the world of blogging, so please be easy on us.

So, why Gin Daddies we hear you ask? Well, we love gin and we are both daddies (one of us very newly so) and personally my kids have driven me to drinking more gin, though I thank them for this.

Over the years we have tried so many different gins that we are actually starting to lose track of the ones we really like (and the ones we don’t) and so thought that keeping a record in the form of a blog could be fun and informative. We have no hidden agenda, we are completely impartial and hope that our ramblings may give you some ideas for your next gin to try.

We understand that gin drinkers are passionate people and so, we want you to come on this slightly intoxicated adventure with us. Feel free to contact us and tell us what gin you would like us to review next.

Cheers,
Gin Daddies.