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My gin experiment

It’s yellow. It looks like a piss bottle. I look like a crazy lady saving her wee.

I think it must be that way for all compound gin (you remember – gins that are flavored *after* they’re distilled). I’ve been looking at the fancy gins in the store and most have a color, usually yellow.

If all the artisan gins are compound gins, it’s a flippin’ license to print money. It means they could well be buying or making the cheapest raw spirit and just adding flavors to it. And charging £30. Because once the juniper berries go in, it doesn’t matter what the raw spirit tasted like.

That’s what I do, anyhoo.

It’s nice. I like it.

I’m palming you off with this bad, out-of-focus snapshot of my piss bottle because I’m about to fall upon it and devour it. There was an issue with the intruder alarms at work and I had to go in just now to make sure everything’s okay before the storm hits.

In person. This little weasel. After hours.

I am aggrieved.

Comments


Comment from OldFert
Time: February 17, 2022, 9:28 pm

I spent years on call. Some lashed to the officially-on-call pager or cell phone, but also just generally on the leash (they knew my kids were grown and I lived nearby).
Not much of a drinker but I was always tempted (when called while not the “official” stuck-ee) to tell them that I had imbibed a few and was unable to drive.
Never used the excuse, but I could kick myself for not doing so.


Comment from QuasiModo
Time: February 17, 2022, 9:56 pm

The way inflation is going, home-made hooch could be a nice black market seller.


Comment from Drew458
Time: February 17, 2022, 10:34 pm

I don’t go for any of these flavored alcohols. First it was rum, then “fireball” cinnamon whisky, then vodka, and now we’re seeing a huge proliferation of flavored gin. I think the distillers are making junk booze and covering their tracks with flavorings.

You want a nice flavored gin? Take some Bombay Sapphire, peel a few inches of an English cucumber, slice it thin, and put that in the gin for a couple hours. Works with Hendricks too. Be warned, it gets a little bit too much if you leave the cukes in there more than a day.


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: February 18, 2022, 12:14 am

@Oldfert – yep, same here. Never did use the excuse, but certainly muttered it under my breath. And 99% of the time I’d have been lying if I used it.

Except back in the days of the pager, in a canoe filled with empty beer cans and two other morons, going down the Ipswich river towards the sea and thinking how tragic it would be if the pager fell out of my pocket into the water.


Comment from dissent555
Time: February 18, 2022, 12:33 am

I’ll toast your efforts with a bit of Oban 14 while I stare outside at the falling snow.


Comment from Some Mushroom
Time: February 18, 2022, 12:53 am

Looks like a jar of urine?

À propos de rien:

https://www.mushroom-magazine.com/amanita-muscaria-urine-like-hot-like-cold-like-pot-hours-old/


Comment from LesterIII
Time: February 18, 2022, 1:04 am

I’m permanently on-call nowadays, since it’s a one-man show. Often answer client calls at 0300, but only for the clients that prove their worth. I have received some fine rye whiskey over the past couple years (THESE clients know what I like), and it pairs perfectly with hard cider; the whiskey served neat, of course.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 18, 2022, 11:47 am

I don’t mind being on call that much, except I never got my UK driver’s license. Meaning, Uncle B has to drive me in at night. So, really, *he’s* on call and that’s embarrassing.

I’d say the winds are currently in the 60s. We lost power for half an hour, but it’s back. We have hours more of this to go, though.


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: February 18, 2022, 11:50 am

Well, you know, it could be a jar of urine, Mr. Hughes. And allegedly, if memory serves, Ghandi was a piss connoisseur.
Here’s some things you probably didn’t want to know today because Weaselworld is full of actual facts drug in like a half-chewed mouse for your viewing pleasure.
https://www.factretriever.com/urine-facts

There’s a jar of mint leaves steeping in vodka in the booze cabinet, anyone have any suggestions, I mean, I guess I should strain the leaves out and, uh. Been about a year or so. Right?

Sorta like making sauerkraut, it’s hard to muster up the fortitude to actually consume the stuff.
Gotta be better than pee though. eeeeeeeek


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: February 18, 2022, 12:14 pm

I like flavored gin, and I make my own. All my ingredients are kept in the refrigerator.

I measure 4 oz of Bombay Sapphire and 1 oz of vermouth into a freezer-cold glass measuring cup. Mine is Fire King but you could use Anchor Hocking. I quickly pour some cold green olive juice into the martini glass, swirl it around and pour it back out. Drop an ice cube into the measuring cup of gin and vermouth and stir it for about 10 seconds, then fish it back out. Pour into the martini glass. Serve with a small dish of green olives (Goya). 🙂


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: February 18, 2022, 1:55 pm

Deborah, I like the way you think drink and wish to subscribe to your newsletter, and ideally attend a couple of seminars…

I also believe in Bombay Sapphire:

“Thou shalt have no other Gin before thee.”

I suppose one could ask for dispensation and try making their own if they lived in a country where good gin was impossible to find….

Oh wait.


Comment from Drew458
Time: February 19, 2022, 4:26 pm

Dirty martinis are the best. My Sapphire lives in the freezer, and the vermouth in the fridge. No sense watering the thing down with ice. It’s always an experiment finding the best olives in the right size, but the Goya ones are usually pretty good in Queen, and the price is reasonable. I’ve tried all the trendy kinds stuffed with garlic or blue cheese, and give them the thumbs down for martinis.

The other key to a great martini is a great vermouth. Get yourself a bottle of Noilly Pratt. They have 2 kinds of dry vermouth, two kinds of sweet, and an amber. All of them taste so good you can drink them by themselves. The big bottle will stay fresh in the fridge for about a year. Once you find Noilly, you will never go back to any Italian vermouth.

NP’s sweet vermouth, Rittenhouse rye, a couple dashes of Angostura bitters and 2 maraschino cherries with a couple drops of the jar juice makes a superb Manhattan. Again, the booze lives in the ice box, so no ice is ever needed.

A friend sent me a link to a vanilla creme lemonade “martini” that uses vanilla flavored vodka, limoncello, and ice cream. Just because you can pour something into a martini glass doesn’t make it a martini.

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