I do like a Manhattan but I usually cut out a few steps and take my whiskey on the rocks. No need to gild the lily.
Yes. The Brits invented the gin and tonic and a number of classic cocktails from the UK also feature gin. The Dutch invented gin. But for a very, very long time the default definitive version of gin has been “London dry”. The variation created in the UK. And it’s always remained a lot more popular there than most other places.
That’s a mid century fashion that became a sort of received wisdom. And it’s even lamer with low grade vermouth that mostly dominated the US market over the years. The original recipe was 50/50. And the longer I was in the cocktail business, And the more I learned about quality booze. The more vermouth I like in my martinis. This is my current preferred recipe.
4oz quality gin. Usually Plymouth or deaths door, but a more classic London dry is great too.
1/4oz lillet blanc.
3-5 dashes of bitters. Depending on the type. I’ll typically go with orange or citrus bitters for Plymouth aromatic or something in that vein for fry gin. Orange flower water in the same amount is also great.
A small pinch of salt.
Stir. Really. You can shake vodka because it’s forgiving and you want it very cold. But it’s too easy to Jack up gin that way. garnish with a wide fresh cut twist of lemon. (or a cuke if you like Hendricks)
You want to chill the glass with ice before hand. Then squeeze that twist into the empty glass, to spray it’s oils over the interior. Then swap the lip of the glass with the twist, And place it in the bottom of the glass. You pour the drink into this oiled glass, over the twist, allowing the twist to float.
I don’t dig on olives in drinks. And the still lingering trend for blue cheese stuffed olives is just a good way to foul up a drink.
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When it’s bitter cold and icy out, as it is right now, brown liquors are my favorites; gin just doesn’t do it for me.
But on a hot sweltering summer day, a cold gin & tonic is wonderful.
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One of my favorites for gin drinks is the Negroni: gin, red vermouth, and Campari, mixed 1:1:1. I usually add a dash or two of Fee Bros. old-fashioned bitters as well.
If I make a martini, I prefer to go old-old-school and use red vermouth, in a noticeable amount. I’ll have to find myself some Old Tom gin and try that as well.
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Ethnically based sheep jokes I’ll grant you.
The turps thing tends not to be ethnic in my experience - just generic homeless/alcoholic, i.e. someone so undiscriminating in what they drink that they’ll drink turps.
I never said ethnic. Primarily people (and white people targeting white people) within ones own nation/identity group that are popularly held to be backward, uneducated. Your rednecks and what have. Usually a close neighbor.
And not always turps. Paint thinner. Particularly low rent or disreputable booze. Gas. Mouth wash.
English people applying it to Scots. Scots applying it to the Welsh. Poles applying it Russians.
Ethnic in that sense.
The rest I agree with.
Taking it back to @enkidoodler’s riginal question about Granny Aching’s Special Sheep Liniment - that is a reference to moonshine. It’s clearly distilled for drinking rather than actually treating sheep. It’s just labelled as sheep liniment to keep the knowless-ones away, presumably ‘revenooers’.
That is of course then also referencing the trope that moonshine is basically like drinking turps, or paint-thinner, or sheep-dip.
Or skip the fiddly steps and just gimmie the bourbon.
yeah technically for those examples. But Irish applying it to northern Irish (there is a bit of a long standing historical ethnicish border there). English applying it to nortern England. My small home town applying it to the smaller, island bound town off our coast. They got the uncle brother cousin. And I hear they’ll even drink shelack when they’re hard up. They huff bottom paint and get amorous with chickens. More about the parochial neighbor. Just happens to cross over with ethnic devides.
Indeed. I can never remember when one is supposed to use a green olive and when to use a black one. Awkward.
Typically one is only supposed to use green. But it really does not matter. One of the easiest improvements you can make to martinis and bloody marys if you do like olives is trading out the cheap manzanilla/cocktail olives for literally any other variety of quality olive. Preferably pit in.
Used to use nicoise or castelvetrano at the better bars I worked.
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A post about gin. So I kept scrolling down… scrolling, scrolling, scrolling… AH! there you are, @Papasan. I figured you be here.
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Sheep, yes. Drinking turpentine (specifically turpentine - I see you broadened the concept in later comments), no.
Exactly. I haven’t encountered a regional aspect to it.
What about ‘Freedom Gin’ (on the lines of ‘Freedom Fries’ which at the time we thought was a particularly Orwellian turn-of-phrase…)?
James Bond is always on the job, so he probably doesn’t want to get too drunk, hence shaken martinis.
I will second Aviation (which is made here in town) – that’s my go-to. We recently had New Amsterdam martinis at a small pace downtown it was quite good. We also had some G&Ts made with Gompers, which is purportedly to be more like classic London gins – it had a slight yellow tinge and the botanicals were (to me) a bit strong, but it was still refreshing.
I like a G&T on any hot day when I’m not feeling like an old fashioned. The G&T – when Englishmen abroad in India discovered that quinine could prevent and treat malaria, they mixed it into fizzy water and drank it. Hmm… a bit bitter. I know what can make this better: gin!
And from the quoted article itself:
My guess would be you’re smelling the botanicals and not the ethanol itself.
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Haha! Of COURSE you do M.
Funny, I often use the expression “I need to get dipped” to indicate when I need some of Granny Aching’s special sheep liniment. Perhaps externally as well. F’ing parasites. I’ll have to try me a bottle o that, er, turpentine you’ve been so kind as to recommend, for my friend, yes. Ahem. Must be going now.
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I hope you are not making Manhattens with bourbon!
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Oh, he sometimes does some spying as well…
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