We promised that we’d have something even better than the fantastic Generous Gin, and we do. It’s a strange one, which we guess is the niche high-quality gin is fine falling into. It is, however, a wonderful gin that is unlikely to be akin to something you’ve had before in your G&T.
As we head into Week 2 of Gincember? (working title) we have some confusion – so to simplify this. New Amsterdam has decided to label both of their gins under the moniker ‘Stratusphere’ with a version that is called ‘The Original’ and this ‘London Dry Gin’. A London Dry typically involves a slightly different process, and a higher proof. There is something slightly odd afoot though because at first blush this seems more like the old version (with a bit of kick)
So as we get close to Christmas time we decided to do some further reflections on gin, so this will be week 1/3 in gin reviews, and the spirit of the season has graced us with something excellent. Beyond that and we truly mean this as well – as good as this is – there is another. (#StarWarsTLShype)
Listen, sometimes it’s another week for reviews, you’ve not done a gin in a bit so let’s grab some of that and it’s a plastic bottle. Now we inherently don’t have much issue with the bottle being plastic other than environmental concerns because as we know all too well – you can put some shit into a glass just as easy. Here though we have a big, very big problem.
This gin reminded us (look-wise at least) of Gin Mare. That spirit, however, had some weird distilling methods leaving it ultimately like a cocktail in a bottle. Where that was expensive though and worked really only in a martini, we have at different beast here. This is a gin (and it’s been a while coming) that we can’t point to a major flaw.
Now most people when they think Bombay picture that iconic blue bottle of Sapphire. Only those who’ve spent their time looking at the bottom shelves or met with a terrible fate asking for G&T at a bar to find there is another. So if Bombay Sapphire is the premium model, what’s the basic version like – well it’s certainly basic.
The name South Hollow Spirits jogged our memory a bit, and lo and behold – we’ve had their rum. The rum was an overall failure, was barely able to be mixed, and hilarious overpriced. This too is a small batch and is ridiculously priced as well, but mercifully it’s nowhere near as deplorable.
It is a bit hard to rationalize disliking when people put the words ‘farm crafted’ and ‘organic’ on something we review when we ourselves are the brand of hipster that hates some new burger joint charging 19 for their creation yet still visits a farmer’s market every week because it’s between the butcher and weed store and potatoes are required for a meal this week. In short, we don’t buy into this malarkey, but we at least respect it well enough.
Howard Hawks once said that a good movie was “three good scenes and no bad ones.”, and if we apply that philosophy to this gin, it can be said there are 3 good aspects. The design is killer, the sweet and spicy taste is great, and the aroma literally fills the room with gin. However to say there are no bad aspects would be a lie, and as such, this is certainly not a good gin.
So since we didn’t know, and this ain’t a tea site – Gunpowder Tea is a style of Chinese tea where the leaves are dried and rolled into little balls that resemble gunpowder like pellets. This makes them easier for travel and retains more flavor for a longer time which is what we assume the distilling mind of one PJ Rigney was concerned about.
