I really dislike gin. Every time I had it in the past, it reminded me of pine needles. It’s what I imagine Pine-Sol would taste like, were I to drink it. Hopefully, I’ll never have to drink Pine-Sol. Unless I’m in some kind of weird torture situation.
Anyway, since gin is in so many cocktails, and it seems like such a classy thing to drink, I thought I’d give it another shot and try some gin-based cocktails.
I was told that I would like Bombay Sapphire more than other gins, because of the fruitier flavors. Sadly, the gin itself is not actually sapphire-colored, it’s only the bottle. If only Bombay Sapphire turned drinks blue…
First, I tried a gin gimlet, since I liked the vodka gimlet I made before.
Gin Gimlet
2 oz gin
1 oz lime juice
0.5 oz simple syrup
lime slice
It’s the same exact recipe as the vodka gimlet, just with gin in place of the vodka. I could still taste the gin through all that lime juice and simple syrup, though it wasn’t as pine-needly as I would have expected. It actually had kind of a nice clean taste, though I wasn’t really fond of the Pine-Sol aftertaste. Definitely prefer the vodka gimlet.
The gin and tonic is a classic, so of course I had to try one of those.
Gin and Tonic
2 oz gin
5 oz tonic water
lime slice
I went for the 2:5 ratio of gin to tonic water to minimize the gin flavor. Apparently, some people do 1:2, or even 1:1, which seems ridiculous. It’s pretty piney, although the tonic water’s bitterness helps somewhat. I put a small squeeze of lime juice in too, but the pine needle taste still comes through. I thought it was pleasantly sweet with the sweetened tonic water, though (I used Schweppes).
The White Lady was apparently invented sometime in the early 1900s.
White Lady
2 oz gin
1 oz Cointreau
1 oz lemon juice
lemon slice
Basically a sidecar, but with gin instead of brandy. Really strong drink, but with all that lemon juice, I actually couldn’t really taste the gin. But all I got was sourness, there really wasn’t any sweetness. I’d probably use triple sec next time for more sweetness.
All in all, the gin cocktails weren’t nearly as bad I as expected, probably because I covered up the gin with a lot of acidic lemon or lime juice. I think a lot of gin cocktails are like that, though. Perhaps the citrus goes well with the pine needle flavor.