Help me pick a new gin

Love the terroir. Maybe a Junipero or Aviation for the Last Word?

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I flip between Fever Treeā€™s Mediterranean and Cucumber Tonic Waters. I buy the Cucumber to mix with Hendrickā€™s but used it with Rangpur when I ran out of Mediterranean. Both worth for me now.

I sure donā€™t drink gin often, anymore, but I always liked the in-your-face London dry gin. Beefeater.

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Yep, 202 years in business, they must be doing something right.

Bombay Sapphire and Hendricks are VERY different.

Sapphire has so many botanicals, and Hendricks is cucumber forward.

Bulldog and Bloom are both London Dry gins which are commonly used in G & Ts and Martinis.

Plymouth is the only remaining Plymouth Gin (made there). It is dry, versatile, and good in martinis and negronis.

Deathā€™s Door and Aviation are both American gins. DD is Modern and Aviation Modern Dry.

For an all purpose, I would choose Plymouth.
For a sipping gin, I would suggest Deathā€™s Door.

Enjoy!!

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Correct.

I hate Bombay Sapphire.
I enjoy Hendricks even though I find it a bit overpriced.

Iā€™m lucky in that my tastebuds canā€™t detect a difference in most gins used in Negronis and gin-Campari drinks.

Even in gin & tonic I find the differences between gins minute. Unless the gin used is highly botanical like Monkey 47 (my personal favourite gin neat)

If Iā€™m drinking a gin neat, thatā€™s where I really can detect and determine the differences between gins.

Same with Aperol spritz - whether itā€™s a cheap cava or a champagne - to me they taste the same in this drink.

I personally find this same pattern in all the mixed cocktails I drink. Itā€™s a waste to spend extra money on high quality spirits in mixed cocktails in my experience.

Iā€™m willing to take a bet.

Serve people 3 Negronis using the same vermouth, Campari and 3 different gins. Blind test them.

Only a few select will be able to tell what negroni has a particular gin in it.
Most people will not have a clue.

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If I could tell the difference, which I canā€™t unless itā€™s St. George Terroir, I could not articulate it after three Negronis, but it sounds like a fun experiment!

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Precisely - even if you can detect the difference in the first sips from the 3 negroniā€™s, youā€™ll soon not be able to taste the difference at all.

Itā€™s like searing a steak on a 2.5 copper pan, a Demeyere 7-Ply pan and a thick pre-heated carbon steel pan.
Differences in the quality of the searing results will be minute.

I bet you if you use Tanqueray, Beefeater and Aviation in 3 Negronis, very very few - if any - will be able to detect the differences and pinpoint what gin is in which negroni. The test of course should be a blind taste.

Neat I can blind taste the 3 gins and pinpoint what gin Iā€™m drinking, but in a Negroni, not a chance.

Come on guys - of course you can taste differences in negronis if you use different gins!

You may not be able to blind taste which gin is used in a negroni but I can 100% taste a different negroni if I use Tanqueray versus Monkey 47.

And for the record, the differences between a Proline and a copper 2.5 frying are not small imho.

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I could def say which gin is in my martini. Blind. Negroni? Not particularly, since the vermouth & Campari are so overpowering. Itā€™s not a favorite of mine. I like tasting my gin.

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Well youā€™re picking one of the most unique gins out there, my favourite Monkey 47 and yes that gin you will be able pick out if used in a cocktails.

But do 4 Negroniā€™s with for instance Tanqueray, Beefeater, Aviation and Hendricks and if you can distinguish these 4 gins in 4 Negronis blind tasting them, you have one heck of a bunch of tastebuds.

I wouldnā€™t be able to pinpoint them blind tasting the Negroni.

I would absolutely taste the Hendricks vs. the other three in a Negroni. Hendricks has a very particular flavor profile - if weā€™re talking the OG, which is heavy on the cucumber.

But speaking of Hendricks, I absolutely adored the summer solstice edition. Still have a bottle in the basement. Amazing in a martini.

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Then I salute your tastebuds.

I still claim 95% could not pick what gin was used in these 4 negroniā€™s.

I might be able to pick the Tanqueray out, because it to me has a quite rough taste for its 43.1% ABV.
Picking the cucumber in the Hendricks I might, but I think the Campari and vermouth kills it.
I could be wrong.

But blind tasting them 4 in a row I would have a very hard time deciding what gin is in which negroni.

Iā€™m a blind taster of single malt whiskey for a Danish importer I know, and I know my tastebuds are quite refined, but the Campari and vermouth in a Negroni confuses my tastebuds enough to confuse me about the gin used.

So does Tanqueray. Iā€™d be able to tell, also.

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Just in case anyone is interested in a gin with seaweed - there are some.

I know The Sprout has tried the Neptunia but I canā€™t recall whether she liked it or not. She collects the special edition Henrickā€™s bottles.

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My post was not made to say no one can taste the difference when tasting it and knowing whatā€™s in it.

And I have no doubt a lot of gin fans have well developed tastebuds to distinguish different gins.

I personally can just say, that as soon I donā€™t drink spirits neat, my ability to taste each component in a cocktail will diminish by the number of ingredients in the cocktail.

Campari to me is quite a characteristic strong bitter and at 25% ABV is really takes a unique gin to overpower the Campari taste.

In a negroni, I find the gin more supporting the Campari and the vermouth than dominating the cocktail.
I make a negroni 1/1/1 parts Campari/gin/Rossa vermouth.

If anything I find the Demeyere Proline frying pan slightly superior to the Mauviel M250 copper frying pan when it comes to searing a steak, which is what I mainly intend to use my two Demeyere Proline pans for.

Regarding versatility, nothing beats a 2.5 bimetal copper frying pan.

I prefer a dry Negroni, same measurements. I donā€™t claim to be able to identify the gin, just to know that Negoni A is made from a different gin than Negroni B. And I donā€™t think you need a particularly refined palate for that. It would be harder with vodka.

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Well I agree to an extent.

But for me to use for instance Caorunn gin in a negroni (my other favourite gin outside Monkey 47) I feel I need to really distinguish the gin in the cocktail for it to be worth using in a cocktail.

My argument is, that if I canā€™t really personally distinguish a certain gin in a cocktail, but merely knows it in there and it has to be unique and great, but the same drink made with a cheaper gin, for instance Beefeater, will make the cocktail taste just as good, I find Iā€™m wasting my money and my great gin.

This is of course just my personal opinion and based on my tastebuds.
I salute all you guys, who can distinguish what rum, tequila, vodka and gin is used in a Long Island ice tea :grinning:

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I use the 1:1:1 ratio too. But I use Cocchi vermouth, maybe wondering the reason why you have a hard time distinguishing the gin in a negroni is because you use Martini Rosso? Iā€™ve always used Cocchi so cannot say. By the way, most of the times when I order a negroni in a bar, even expensive bars, I donā€™t like it as much as my own homemade version, so imho that says something about how different ingredients and ratios really make a difference.

To me, strongly flavoured gins like the Monkey 47 ruin a negroni. I want the gin to complement the other two drinks, not overpower them. I like normal Tanquaray a lot in a negroni, precisely because it just melts into the other flavours giving the negroni a perfect balance. I also like Tanquaray Rangpur, which is on its own also a great drink.

Same for rum - for me the ideal rum for cocktails like a daiquiri is Plantation three stars, and for a ti punch it is Neisson.

By the way, these are my three favourite cocktails - negroni, daiquiri and the ti punch! :slight_smile:

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