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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.
Every once in awhile, I delve into other spirits (and sometimes wine) to broaden my palate and since I used a Christmas BevMo gift card on mini-bottles of gin, I thought I should give my thoughts on it. *with all due apology to gin bloggers…
The two gins were Broker’s (the be-hatted mini-bottle) and Martin Miller’s.
I tried both straight and then in my favorite cocktail and the simplest, the Gin & Tonic using a basic/simple Food Network website recipe.
I went with the Hat first, Brokers was strong from the get-go. It was hot on initial taste and blazed a burning path through my palate and it was also viscous and a bit on the medicinal side. In the G&A, it was too much gin. I was forced to amp the tonic to compensate.
Miller’s was way more softer which came as a great relief. Also way more herbal with some lemony essence as well. It had both a kick and warmth without going overboard on either. In the G&T there was a serious elderflower note and it was much sweeter. The taste grew on me though.
In the end neither has the right balance for me and I think I would need something smack in the middle to whet my gin whistle.
Flaviar is an odd duck of a website and spirits idea that I am not sold on quite yet. The website doesn’t seem geared to people who are picky, more to those who want monthly gift boxes.
Much like Amazon, you can shop for individual spirits without buying a membership, which they also refer to as prime.You can choose auto-selected boxes of whiskey, gin, rum and others or you can self-select what you desire. It arrives to you in science-y looking beakers for tasting.
I appreciate the idea as a tool for exploration but without knowing what it would cost to buy the full bottle, I feel like I could get told any price for one of the tasters. The selection looks strong and unique and different from the mini-bar bottles you could normally buy but at a liquor store you can compare prices.
Filing this under, website to monitor and maybe purchase from later.
What truly sets apart the trip that Firestone Walker provided the L.A. Beer Bloggers group is that it isn’t all about beer. Yes, there is plenty of Easy Jack and Pivo Pils flowing but these guys want to showcase all that the Central Coast and Paso Robles in particular has to offer.
Last year, the spotlight was on the bio-dynamic farming of Windrose Farms and the wines of Herman Story. This year Andrew Murray Vineyards was showcased along with an amazing dinner and spirits extravaganza at Re:Find Distillery.
Alex and Monica Villicana are winemaker’s first. But they wanted to find a use for grape juice that got bled off to enhance the finished wine. What to do with what is technically called saignée. Well, they went the distilling route. They make vodka and gin and brandy and limoncello all from grape juice!
Now Firestone doesn’t just stop at the introduction. I should have been hip to that after the Friday we enjoyed. No. We not only got to taste the vodka and gin. We got to try our hand at blending our own gin for our own gin and tonics! Now my first two stabs at it were over lavendered and way over Angelika Root’d. My third attempt yielded a passable gin. But now I know much more of what makes spirits so good and what goes into making and blending them.
But folks, that was not all. Re:Find had been in contact with Firestone about our trip and they went even further and made us a white whiskey from a wash similar to the 805 lager recipe. With the appropriate name of Writer’s Blanc.
They could have stopped there. Told us to get back on the bus and find our own food and we would have been happy. But then out comes a five course meal from Chef Thomas Yun?
There was octopus which I tried but didn’t super enjoy but there was a glass of Opal saison to drink. There was a lamp chop and a rib eye cap and, well… here’s the menu….
It was an amazing melding of food, spirits and beer and people.
And we in the beer blogging community should be hailing passionate producers of cheese, lettuce, wine or whatever because they are the same as our brewers. Artisans who are raising the bar on how we see our food.