Gin

[mickthecactus]

I like gin.

Any other fans out there?

[Deleted]

Me too. And since the Queen Mum died, there's enough for the rest of us now.

[onlymark]

I'm teetotal.
So not me.

[Deleted]

You have a wet cold nose.

[tod2]

I don't mind a G&T occasionally but only if someone else is a Gin fan and is having one. Same with Whisky. I'll have a really good one (single malt) if a friend is having one. At the moment I have a twelve year old Johnnie Walker Black Label open, but I'm not an expert on Whiskies but I think it's a blend. Not bad at all. Basically I just have a glass of dry white before dinner and a good red with my food.

We do have a friend who loves Vodka, so I have a Polish one in the freezer called Wyborowa Wodka. It's a pure grain Vodka and he says its slides done really smoothly!

[bjd]

When I was 16 or 17 I drank too much gin once and it tasted a lot worse coming back up than it had going down. I haven't had a drop since, and don't drink any other hard stuff either.

[bixaorellana]

What Tod (Toddy? ;D) said about G&Ts. The bad thing about them is that they taste rather refreshing, rather than alcoholic, making them somewhat dangerous.

I probably can't tell the difference between one gin and another, but I do think gin has an interesting weird taste.

[hwinpp]

Weird. Correct.

I much prefer vodka tonics. Still saves you from a horrible malaria death...

[mickthecactus]

I liked Noel Cowards recipe for gin martini - fill a glass with ice, add gin and wave vaguely in the direction of Italy.

[Don Cuevas]

Mexican made gin, Oso Negro (Black Bear) is best used for paint thinner.

[tod2]

I'm darn sure some of the concoctions brewed here are pretty dangerous - One I do know of is called Gaveen/Gavine (not sure of the sp) but you can always tell a person who drinks it....they have bleached skin on their lower lip. In the case of a dark skinned person, their lips turn bright pink.

Mmmmmm....it's nearly slurp time - I think I'll go and make myself a nice ice-cold Bloody Mary with some of that Wodka in the freezer;D

[mickthecactus]

I love Bloody Mary..................

And what time would that be tod2? ;D

[tod2]

Mick, that would have been 5pm our time. Yes....I know it sounds too early, but here down south the sun is "Shisa'! (pronounced She - Saah!) That's the Zulu word for hot ( of course). We tend to spend 1 hour slurping, and three hours dining. ;D Oh, and slurping some more...

Well I can tell ya, that bloody mary with the Polish Wodka (double) slid down like crocs on a wet path!
(Those being the cheap Chinese imports)

[mickthecactus]

Oh no, 5 is fine. Slurping and dining sounds good to me too...

I thought it might have been noon which is pushing it perhaps..... ;D

[Deleted]

Sept 16, 2011 13:58:41 GMT Don Cuevas said:

Mexican made gin, Oso Negro (Black Bear) is best used for paint thinner.

The people who make Thai gin may have obtained the recipe from Mexico then.

[Jazz]

Sept 16, 2011 8:17:34 GMT mickthecactus said:

I liked Noel Cowards recipe for gin martini - fill a glass with ice, add gin and wave vaguely in the direction of Italy.

;D ;D ;D fabulous quotation! (but I don't like gin, vodka , scotch etc)...enjoy!

[bixaorellana]

Here's a little coincidence -- I was checking acooking site for something else, and this was featured:

Lemon Cucumber Cocktail Recipe
Three 10-ounce bottles club soda
1 cup gin
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
12 thin slices lemon (from 1 lemon)
12 thin slices cucumber (from 1 small cucumber)
12 cups crushed ice
12 sprigs fresh mint, for garnish (optional)
In a large pitcher, combine the club soda, gin, and lemon juice
Place a slice of lemon and cucumber in each of 12 glasses. Add about a cup of crushed ice to each glass. Pour the gin mixture into the glasses and garnish each with a mint sprig, if desired.

Here's the link, which I recommend for the comments & because it has a metric converter.

[lagatta]

That actually sounds interesting, bixa. And refreshing, not too strong. I'm with tod - I can certainly enjoy a gin and tonic, but I very rarely drink hard liquor. I will succumb to rare cognacs and single malt scotches if a friend proffers those, but even the best tend to give me a headache the next day - perhaps just that bit more, as except for the sippers, they are usually brought out after a meal with wine.

Tod, that Gaveen sounds ghastly. What is it, homemade (bathtub) gin? I'm sure that also kills a lot of people.

[tod2]

Lagatta, Yes it is home-brewed or distilled actually. In South Africa there are thousands of non-licensed 'dives' called Shabeens. There is one just across the road from where I drop my housemaid but getting a photo would be asking for trouble as the maid has already warned me not to stop nearby as she heard some men remark they would like my car! EEeeeee!

Back to Gaveen......Nobody knows exactly what's in it but I have heard they put in torch batteries just for that extra kick. Gawd, no wonder it takes the skin off your lips

I reckon it is probably on a par with Stroh Rum. I think thats almost 100%proof alcohol. High school boys like to brag about drinking it.

[Deleted]

Today's warm and sunny afternoon led me back to this thread.

[Deleted]

I perused the earlier posts in this thread and thought for sure I had posted but didn't.

Anyway, try as I might or have, gin is the one alcoholic beverage that I could never ever acquire a taste for. It always sounds to be refreshing but, every time I have tried it, I can't ever get past the first sip. I suspect it must be the juniper berries but I'm not sure.

I also loathe tonic water.


As an aside, some people that I have known to be real "gin heads" (clearly of the alcoholic variety), all seem to have deteriorated much more rapidly and someone told me and, I have nothing to back this up with, that gin is the most damaging alcohol to the brain over all others.

[lagatta]

I like tonic water.

Gin's bad reputation goes back to Hogarth at least (Gin Lane...) but I suppose any hard liquor drunken in excess is not particularly good for the health of brain, liver or anything else.

I love some wine with good meals, so really don't want to overdrink and have to take the pledge. But of course it is possible to drink gin or pretty much anything else in moderation, and to binge on wine or even beer.

[bixaorellana]

There is a thread here somewhere about bitter tastes. Tonic water would definitely be in that category, which is why I will raise a glass of it along with LaGatta.

After reading Casimira's post, I started wondering about gin's bad reputation, which I had always thought was due to alcohol abuse in 18th century England -- mother's ruin and all that. Accordingly, I googled "gin more damaging than other alcoholic beverages?" and got many hits.

This one traces the history of gin in England and the societal causes of alcoholism in the 18th and 19th there.

But this cheerful article proposes that gin in moderation might actually be good for ones health. (Rather speciously in the case of gin&tonic for warding off malaria, as I believe it's the tonic that has the quinine, not the gin.)

[patricklondon]

Mar 26, 2017 16:07:05 GMT bixaorellana said:

(Rather speciously in the case of gin&tonic for warding off malaria, as I believe it's the tonic that has the quinine, not the gin.)

I thought the gin was there to take your mind off the malaria....

And to revert to the OP's point:

[bixaorellana]

Ha!

Watching that brought back a memory of my amazement in a US bar at an Englishman ordering gin and water, no ice, no nuthin'.

[mickthecactus]

I have gin and water now, no ice.
Daughter off to a gin tasting at a tiny distillery in Cambridge tomorrow evening. Their top gin retails at £2,000 a bottle!

[kerouac2]

I am always amazed at people who prefer vodka tonic to gin tonic. How could that be possible? (My brother is one of them.)

[bixaorellana]

Ditto, Kerouac.

I think there is a whole strata of humanity who don't like >>taste<<. These are often people who don't care for fish because it's "fishy", or lamb, because it's "gamy", etc.

[mickthecactus]

Game. That’s another topic. I like game...

[bixaorellana]

Mick, this is not at the level of your daughter's gin tasting, but when I arrived at the apartment in Amsterdam, there were dribs & drabs of liquor in the fridge, including Bombay Sapphire & I think Beefeaters, which the owner told me to go ahead & finish if I wished. I wished.