A few choice Gins

Much though I love my new van, Ruby’s not proving to be the most reliable vehicle in the world. I bought her from Cumbria Vans with a full service history which has turned out to be a complete work of fiction. Now, I don’t necessarily blame Cumbria Vans for this (though it would be nice if they returned telephone calls) but, after yet another £600 bill, followed by a short drive where the service light came on – again I returned home fairly grumpy. Mum was having a Gin and Tonic so Dad poured me one as well. Only, he poured me a different Gin to the one he’d made for Mum.

Well, that was the start of a new adventure!

Over the course of the next couple of evenings Mum and I had a tasting session of the four gins in the house.

Martin Miller – made with Icelandic water. Not sure I would have known the water came from Iceland if they hadn’t told me!

What was really interesting was that we started off trying Martin Miller and Whitley Neill. I preferred the Miller gin because I thought it had a clean citrusy taste and it it put a bit of fire in the back of your throat when it when down. Mum preferred the Whitley Neill for exactly the same reasons that I preferred the Miller. It’s just so intriguing that, two people can taste exactly the same drinks, and yet have two completely different tasting experiences.

The next evening we moved onto Gutsy Monkey Winter Gin and Bombay Sapphire.

Gutsy Monkey is a traditional gin that is packed full of flavour. Mum and I both agreed that it has an element of spice to it, followed by orange and mandarin tones. Also, the colour is different to any other gin we’ve tried. It was almost like a cloudy lemonade once poured from the bottle.

Definitely a firm favourite.

Of course Bombay Sapphire is the “go to” gin when we are out at the pub. Flavour-for-money wise it’s one of the best commercially available plain gins on the market, in my opinion. To me, it has quite a nice dryness with more hints of fruit zest rather than sweetness. It pairs very nicely with carbonated tonic water and a slice of lime. Mum, however, thinks that it has some very earthy notes to it.

The Whitley Neill is one of Mum’s favourite of the commercial, rather than craft, gins, but it isn’t for me. As I said earlier, she thinks it’s got a clean, but slightly fiery taste with some citrus and earthy notes to it whereas, when I drink it, I feel like I’m drinking gin mixed in with sugar syrup. But everyone’s taste buds are different. It is still an enjoyable gin, but just a bit too sweet for me.

Over the course of the two evenings, we both agreed that Gutsy Monkey was number 1. After Gutsy Monkey, our tastes were completely different. I was 1) Gutsy Monkey 2) Martin Miller 3) Whitley Neill and 4) Bombay Sapphire. Mum was 1) Gutsy Monkey 2) Whitley Neill 3) Bombay Sapphire and 4) Martin Miller.

Gutsy Monkey – the clear favourite. Love the bottle – it’s just a shame you can’t see how much you’ve got left!

For the purposes of the exercise, the tonic remained Schweppes, throughout. We have done some taste testing on tonic waters and Schweppes was the clear winner on a taste-for-value basis.