Here in Oregon we have a thriving craft spirit industry, which I believe may be encouraged by our system that restricts the sale of spirits to state liquor stores.
All this sounds great, but so far I’ve tried two local gins and they both tasted curiously sweet. They aren’t weak in terms of alcohol content, but this last one actually has a minty aftertaste. This is so far removed from the traditionally dry Gilbey’s/Bombay/Tanqueray taste so admirably suited to the concoction of martinis, that I seriously wonder if anyone actually does make martinis with this sweet and minty booze.
Is there a way to “correct” a martini made with this stuff? A different kind of vermouth perhaps? Or maybe a dash of bitters?
Or should I just give in and buy some tonic water?
ETA: Substituting vodka for some of the gin will also be considered.
I think the craft gin makers are mostly trying to recreate genever, the Dutch liquor that was the original gin. Because it’s, you know, all authentic and shit.
Genever might be all right as a sort of straight-up schnapps booze, but it’s not a cocktail mixer.
When the Brits started to distill gin, it got drier and drier until it became the thing that we are now accustomed to putting in martinis, collinses, and gin-and-tonics.
My advice is not to use craft gin in mixed drinks. Buy a bottle of Gordon’s or Tanqueray.
I second this, but if it’s the minty flavor that is objectionable, substitute Campari or Cynar for the vermouth. You’ll forget about the mint right away.
My brother gave me a bottle of an Oregon gin that was finished in a Pinot Noir barrel. It’s fantastic, but I wouldn’t try mixing it, it’s a sipper all on its own.
I’ll go the other way in my recommendation. American has never had a gin style and so currently craft gins are running all over the place to find what works. If you don’t like a single distilleries product go find another one. I have no doubt someone is making the exact gin you’re looking for. The gin guys I know off that make a style you’d like are in Colorado and Texas so I can’t help with a specific local to you distillery.
I like artisanal gins. I like the citrus notes that many of them have. If you like dry gins, look for “London” style gins. If you were drinking the Oregon craft gins that I’m thinking of (having lived there), these are in no way representative of craft gins as a whole. In fact, they are fairly poor gins.
I like Walter and The Botanist.
Stick with Beefeaters for your martinis and Bombay for G&T. The craft liquor industry is mostly about flavored booze, in order to sell more to people who don’t like the taste of the real deal.
Technically, a martini is anything you put in a martini glass. Put in the gin, a small scoop of sherbet, and one of those straight candy canes as a straw.
First, genever IS a cocktail mixer, and has been for more than a century. As a matter of fact, genever used to be used alongside rum, bourbon and rye in all sorts of punches and cocktails. Its more malty, less strongly herbal flavor lends itself to that.
Second, there’s nothing wrong with craft gins. The main thing you have to be careful about is that unlike the fairly well-defined London Dry, Old Tom, Plymouth and genever styles (yes, it’s pretty well defined), most craft gin is basically whatever the distiller decides to make. That’s why there’s Rogue Spruce gin, and a host of others that use various botanicals in various combinations. Many are not as juniper-forward as the London Dry style. One in particular (Anchor’s Junipero) is almost overwhelmingly high juniper. Some like to use earthy botanicals. Others floral. Still others like a lot of citrus in theirs. But for the most part, they’re not trying to make genever- if they were, they’d almost certainly be giving it some sort of faux-Dutch name.
I would bet the OP got one with mint or something vaguely minty in their particular botanical mix. Not sure how you remedy that- maybe it might work in a more old-school wetter martini- say… 3:1 with orange bitters (probably the classic 1920s style). That would dilute the gin more and also add some other flavors to round out the drink.
Gin is a flavored booze group of products: a neutral spirit flavored with juniper to some degree and a variety of other aromatics. Different gins have different flavor profiles just like different whiskies do.
Yes pick the gin for the use and to your taste preference. But the real deal gin IS FLAVORED BOOZE.
Genever BTW is juniper based and an ancestor of gin but is not a gin. Its base is not a neutral distillate but contains “malt wine”
Gin was England’s crack a couple centuries back. Mixers? Right. :rolleyes:
When I lived poor in the Mojave Desert’s piñon-juniper zone, even vile vodka became tolerable with crushed wild juniper berries steeped for a day. That’s about as long as I was willing to wait.
When the Army had me wargaming in Germany, cheap Dutch genever was plentiful and the stoneware bottles were great for target practice. Then the radar chief found local schnapps moonshiners; we forgot the gin.
I’ll admit to never trying Oregon (or other) craft gins. What have we missed? Our last jug of Tanqueray was OK. Will a dash or three of bitters make it seem crafty?
In broad terms, craft gins are just gins that are distilled by craft distillers, not the big commercial outfits like Seagrams, Diageo, Bombay Sapphire, Tanqueray, etc… In spirit and scale, they’re akin to craft brewers. So they tend to be local in distribution and interest, although some have become more national/international.
In stylistic terms, they’re not as bound by the established styles of gin- the craft distillers experiment with unusual botanicals that aren’t traditional - cilantro, galangal, and odder stuff. In some cases, they go hyper-local; one Scottish distiller uses primarily local wild herbs grown on the same island as the distillery. They all have a certain juniper berry flavor, as that’s a big part of what makes gin what it is, but how strong that is, depends on the distiller’s whim.
In practical terms as a consumer, it means that you don’t really know exactly what you’re getting. I mean, you know you’re getting something that’s broadly in line with what someone thinks is gin, but it’s nowhere near as clear as if you are buying something labeled as “London Dry Gin”. Even though it’s not a regulated term, there’s a clear London Dry style, and most craft gins aren’t really aiming for that.
For a relatively mild example, try Hendricks Gin from Scotland; it has pronounced cucumber and rose botanical flavors, and while you can clearly tell it’s still gin, it’s NOT really interchangeable with Tanqueray or Beefeater in a lot of things.
That would be The Botanist that Sunny Daze mentioned earlier, distilled using all Islay-grown flavorings. It actually makes a pretty good martini. But it’s still a dry gin, just island-style as opposed to London-style.
If you are drinking martinis, stick to a dry gin. Save the craft stuff for a G&T or something like that. I would never use Tanqueray Rangpur in a martini, but I’ll go through a bottle every summer just sipping it with tonic.
I’m curious what Oregon gins you’ve tried. I’ve had a number of them, and could maybe recommend some with a different flavor profile if I knew which ones you didn’t like.
Oh, I’m well aware. It’s great stuff, IMO. But it kind of makes my point- it’s not London Dry, and it’s not Plymouth, nor is it Old Tom or Genever. It’s basically it’s own style, just like say… Citadelle, Rogue Spruce, Millers or Hendricks.
What is dry gin anyway? I always understood it to mean “not Old Tom or genever”. And honestly, if you were to have given me Plymouth gin and London Dry, I’d have assumed they were the same style; IMO, the difference between it and the London Drys is well within the variance band among gins *within *the style. Good stuff though.
I concur. I might go so far as to say that a good bartender/mixologist might be able to scheme up a tasty martini with something like Hendricks, but it would be a very specific thing as far as the vermouth and bitters are concerned. London Dry makes for a much more modular martini.