Well it’s certainly distinctive, I’ll give ’em that. It’s time for another British gin on HBR, and it’s a good thing I review by name and not by actual flavoring. I say this because at booze review we don’t do flavored spirits (there’s too much variance and types to establish a solid baseline for a true score). However if this was a blind taste test – I’d likely chide you for giving me some berry vodka.
I bought this gin because there was a skeleton key on it, and based on it’s shape and little booklet I figured it would be a good martini gin. In that respect it is partially true, but alas the tale of this gin is summed up perfectly by the same key on it’s front. (not a real key, flat backing with glue on the back and low-grade material)
Now we move onto a gin that has a history longer than most any spirit; however unlike Gordon’s which claims to have kept it’s rotgut bathtub recipe, you can tell this gin has been subtly improved. If anything my problem with this gin is that it has honed it’s edge too far.
Here at week 2 of gin reviews and we are know in a gin that comes to us from England, that was then shipped to Iceland, and has been described as being made similar to a Scottish single malt – because why not. However while last week we had a good martini gin, this is simply mediocre and overpriced to compensate.
Alright time for some gin since it’s been a while (and we’ve fallen into the trap of just getting New Amsterdam and Tanqueray 10 all over again.) For the first gin (yes there will be another next week) we went with an American gin which comes to us from Maine.
I have actually visited the Tower of London and seen the men wearing the outfit’s pictured on the bottle. I feel though that instead there should be a crow for how badly this tastes. Not to give it a bad rap, but this is normally what you serve in bars as the cheap gin for a good reason.
Part of a 2 week – what does a $10 dollar bill get me review set – the answer as unfortunately common is not magic or art in a bottle, but bitter, bitter disappointment.
If you recall I mentioned a story in my Seagram’s review about my first real experience with gin, and that Seagrams, Black Watch, and Gilbey’s were really – terrible gins, but because I had so much of them, I eventually broke through my general dislike of gin, and now fully appreciate a good gin spirit.
It’s come to my attention that we really haven’t reviewed a gin for near 6 months now (I honestly keep buying New Amsterdam or get a special Tanqueray) So this whole thing aside from providing the internet with honest spirit information is to keep trying new things so let’s try an American gin.
Not since our cookout where we had the delicious Kraken, have I ever really had Bombay (which was sadly lost to us). As stated I’m more a Tanqueray kind of man, but then Justice would have some fighting words with me about that – mostly because we’d have drunk our respective gins. However not to show bias this week I shall partake of the original Bombay Sapphire for you all.
