This gin was introduced to us by our Editor-in-Chief’s boss (of their real job), and it was a good thing that it turned out to not be a bad gin. (No need for awkward discussion about why their tastes are bad and they should feel bad). It however does exactly what you typically want from a London gin – to do well in tonic.
When you get down to it, gin is just a weirdly flavored vodka via some juniper or spices no one can pronounce and often clog up a spice rack. So when you make a gin there are a few ways to lean. Some go more juniper heavy, others citrus, some floral. Langley’s answers the question of what if a gin went full power?
Greetings folks, it looks like someone actually had the gall to send us something to review even after we laid out our terms. On the one hand it’s highly unlikely they were expecting or wanting a 6.5 level score as that’d be the death knell on most sites. As hopefully faithful readers of this site know though – that extra 1.5 from average was well fought and won.
If we had a bank of mottos here at HBR one of them would be ‘what goes in the bottle is the most important part.’ This is because we were raised on the values of ‘it’s what’s inside that counts’. However it’s hard to knock a gin when the Gentlemanly look is taken to the extreme of giving a bottle a hat.
Alright continuing our last week of gin coverage with Uncle Val’s we have another offering that looks good in the bar, but is bad in the glass. Boodles looks spot-on for what you’d expect from a British gin, but it also tastes like the British gins you’ve heard the horror stories about.
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)
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.
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.
