There is no doubt about it…

…over the last few years there has been an absolute explosion in the gin market.  Those of us in the UK who started drinking gin in the ‘80s were more or less divided into two camps – Gordon’s or Beefeater.  Brands like Plymouth and Hendrick’s were rarely found outside of the smartest of cocktail bars and Tanqueray was preferred by those who wanted to appear exotic – though I am not  sure that they were ever fooling anyone but themselves.

Now there is an almost bewildering range of gins to be sampled.  There is one pub that I have been known to frequent that boasts no fewer than 30 gins!  This is an ordinary pub in a not very large town!

So, with all this choice, where do you start?  After all, a G&T is just gin….and….tonic.  Right?  Well, yes.  And no!  Not really.

You need to consider the glass.  The ice.  Then the gin and the tonic.  Then there is also the question of the garnish.  Get all of these constituents right and you will find that it really makes a difference.  G&T is always a pleasant drink, but just a little extra effort can transform it into something so much more.

Let’s start with the glass and the ice.  Temperature makes a huge difference to any drink.  Cold tea or coffee just doesn’t taste the same as a nice hot cuppa, does it?  Warm white wine or, worse still, champagne is barely even drinkable!  Gin is best drunk cold, so you need a generous helping of ice.  If you are worried about diluting your precious libation then bear in mind that more ice actually dilutes it less than too little.  I will explain.  The laws of physics are such that if you mix together two substances at different temperatures (ie the gin and the ice) in a closed environment (the glass) then they exchange heat with each other to try and even out what’s called the “temperature gradient”.  Put more simply, the two temperatures try and cancel each other out.  If you put one cube of ice into a glass full of room temperature liquid, then it will melt pretty rapidly without even having a noticeable cooling effect on the liquid.  Put in enough ice and it outweighs the warm liquid, thus chilling it.  Of course, now that the liquid is chilled it will melt the ice more slowly!  A tall, narrow glass will keep the ice cubes in close contact with each other, slowing down the melting process even more.

Now that you have a tall glass of ice cubes, pour in your gin.  I then add the garnish (a slice of lemon, a wedge of lime or something more exotic – depending on your gin) and finally the tonic.  Some people add the garnish last, but I prefer to put the garnish into the iced gin and swirl it round to release the flavours before topping up with the fizzy tonic.  Keep your tonic in the fridge if you can – I always do.  Some people keep their gin in the fridge too.  However, as I normally have four or five different bottles of gin on the go at any one time, I think there would be serious complaints from the  family if I took up that much space in the fridge!  Perhaps it’s time to think about a separate gin fridge (makes mental note for the future)!

Now you can sit back and enjoy your well deserved G&T.  Cheers!

Through the forthcoming posts on this blog I will endeavour to introduce you to some wonderful gins that you may not have tried before (such as those in the pic above) and also give you the confidence to stray from the beaten path and do your own thing, so do come back regularly to catch up on the latest reviews.