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Three letters is all it took for me to want to drive to the Firestone Walker Propagator to pick up beer. G I N. I love beers that use gin barrels but they are hard to come by and temperamental as tequila barrels can be. But this latest cocktail beer sounds perfect for summer.
I dabble in spirits. I know that I prefer Southern whiskey and gin above all, though I dabble in tequila and other drinks. Thanks to the L.A. Times Food Section, I found a Torrance based canned cocktail maker that delivers with the name of Drnxmyth. And they have bartenders creating some interesting spins on classic cocktails. The recipe makers get a cut too, which I think is great. So I ordered up a pair to be delivered and here is my verdict…
First up was the Margarita, at first I had a hard time twisting the bottom. You see, these drinks have two separate compartments. When you are ready to drink, you twist to mix the two together. Quite ingenious. The aroma was really nice and it tasted fancy. It had nuanced flavors and wasn’t just a tequila hit. The Gin drink was a little too out there for me. It tasted fine, it just wasn’t to my taste. I wished there had been more cucumber and mint notes. It just tasted a bit herbaceous to me.
They have a whiskey and a rum drink and I would not hesitate to try either. The 10 price point for what is essentially two cocktails is a steal.
When in Astoria, I also made a side trip, well, not a long one since, it was across the street from Reach Break Brewing. Pilot House Distilling creates vodka, whiskey, canned cocktails and for me, gin. I had three different versions. A bar version which was my favorite as well as The Painted Lady and a Barrel-aged Painted Lady. The last two had a kick to them but they were very unique and shows how different gin can be.
We can’t let beer have all the seasonal fun, can we?
I don’t want to know beforehand what F&M adds to a gin amidst the other botanicals but this would certainly be a fun gin to taste and find out.
As a gin appreciator with a tiny bit of experience, this recent brand extension from the 33 Books group is right up my alley because I really need to figure out which gins I like and why I don’t like others (looking at you St. George). Plus it will keep me thinking while drinking which will carry-over to beer as well.
Just catching up to the fact that Rogue has taken its Spirits to the next logical extension and canned cocktails. For me, the green cucumber lime is the first choice since I am a gin man with the ginger lime mule being my second choice. I am wondering where the whiskey drinks are though.
Hidden World of New Zealand has a new Gin that is also an IPA, or is it vice-versa?
Bad News – Now the Feijoa & Citra Hop version is out of stock but, since this whole gin endeavor is “a collaboration between Luke Nicholas of Epic Brewing Company and Anthony Sexton of Vaione Gin” then it might be worth looking for this brand and then stocking up on tonic too.
Trend forecasting is dicey. Did anyone see hazy IPAs coming in early 2016? I didn’t. But I will plant a prediction flag with gin barrels. I think gin influenced beers are going to follow a similar trajectory as pilsners. Slow and steady out of the niche styles not a tier below bourbon barrel aged beers. Don’t believe me? The labels above from Pelican and Ommegang tell me it could happen.
A few years back, as part of a trip to Paso Robles put on by Firestone Walker, I had a lovely evening eating food and having cocktails and even practicing creating my own blend of gin at the Re:Find distillery. (It was not good). I finally returned up the windy road and windier driveway to this time taste wine and spirits.
For the fantastic price of $15, a visitor gets four splashes of wine and then tastes of spirits in the room next door, right in front of the beautiful shiny still.
Of the four wines on the flight, my favorite was a Cuvee Blanc from 2016. Sharp and strong with great grape taste to this amateur wine drinker. But I was there to taste the gin and limoncello and decide which I wanted to bring back home with me.
The Vodka was clean and strong but surprisingly the barrel-aged Vodka [e] was even stronger and I noticeably was struck by it. The Limoncello is perfect as a base for cocktails. On it’s own, it was too sweet for me but that lemon taste was magnificent.
The Gin is made of a proprietary blend of botanicals including juniper berry, coriander, orris root, lemon & orange peel, grains of paradise, and lavender. And the aroma was heavenly. This is a gin that could be drunk straight and would reveal different nuances. In a cocktail it really adds a set of spice notes and alcohol heat that was amazing.
Re:Find is part of the distillery trail in Paso Robles but I could have sat on the hill and just drank G&Ts all day.
I think I would like and get along with Matt Teacher, the author of The Spirit of Gin, more than I enjoyed reading his “Stirring Miscellany of the New Gin Revival”.
After reading the Kindle version of the Spirit of Gin, I went to Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena for two reasons.
One. To see if the layout of the book was butchered by trying to fit into the e-format and two, to find a better book on gin because minus a few points learned this book was not what I needed to learn about gin.
I feel spoiled by Tasting Whiskey by Lew Bryson. It has set a high bar for books about spirits. And Teacher’s book doesn’t even come close to that height.
A few reasons why: The photo placement is random. There is no history of gin except for a couple limited paragraphs. There are so many recipes that you would think it is a cocktail book and not a “miscellany”. The organization/skeleton of the book seems haphazard. And according to the percentage read stats, a good 25% is just a list of gins and distillers.
Now that the litany of complaints is mostly complete, we come to my major issue. The tone of the author is weak. Teacher can’t project a newbie vibe which could work well and draw other people in for the ride and certainly doesn’t project an authority of gin information. He closes each and every interview with slight variants of “and I said thank you and left.” It drove me crazy. His handling of interviews was hamhanded. A simple Q&A would have been better suited to his writing style.
What I was looking for as a fan (albeit mostly through gin & tonics) was a history, a primer on styles, distillery practices and examples to start a tasting. What I got was a limited prohibition history with a catalog of gins.
And that is why I went to the bookstore, to get more knowledge.