gin – Opinionated Drinking

American Whiskey’s Dirty Little Secret

It’s not just the craft gin market that’s exploded over the last few years, but the craft spirit market in general. In terms of brown liquor, that means American whiskey, of which in Britain alone, we drink a million litres a month. (And not all of that’s quaffed by me…)

You can develop and bring a white spirit like gin or vodka to market in a little over six months. But, if you want to tap into the American whiskey boom — and why wouldn’t you, it’s one of the fastest growing bits of action on the market — you haven’t just the distilling and marketing hurdles to clear, you have to age the damned stuff too. Which means you’re looking at about three years before you see a return on your investment.

A lot of people have been prepared to make that commitment. In 2000, there were just 24 craft distillers in the US. Today, that figure’s pushing 500. Even Rhode Island has two of them. It’s six and a half times smaller than Wales, and the Welsh only have three.

(I know, I know—it’s facts like these that you keep coming back for…)

But a lot of other people aren’t. Which brings us to bourbon’s and, more especially, rye’s dirty little secret: the Third Party Distiller.

This is how it works: we’re going to create a rye or bourbon brand. Let’s call it Colonel Smellysox’s Old Number Seven. And we want to do it as cheaply as possible. So we’re not going to invest in a still, nor are we going to pay good money to employ a master distiller. We’re going to buy a bunch of raw spirit, but it in barrels and leave it in a temperature controlled warehouse until we can water it, bottle it and sling it out to the public. We’ll probably use some of the money we’ve saved to ensure that Colonel Smellysox’s Old Number Seven has a bottle and label designed to give it shelf presence. Then we sit back, and…

Cha-ching.

The biggest third party distiller is an outfit called MGP, based in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Using a massive distillery site previously owned by Seagram, they pump out barrels and barrels of spirit for a host of clients who don’t much like to advertise the fact. But the biggest clue to who’s who is a whiskey that says it’s older than the brand selling it.

Egregious offenders have included Whistle Pig Rye — “hand-bottled in Vermont”, factory distilled in Canada, retailing at almost £75 a bottle — Bulleit Rye, High West, George Dickle Rye, Angel’s Envy (which also now employs a master distiller, so they could be weaning themselves off the teet) and Redemption, among others.

Templeton Rye actually over-reached and were busted for misleading marketing.

Now, obviously, there’s nothing morally wrong with this. With a little of the old Marketing Linguist Two-Step, none of them are actively lying to the drinking public. But I’d argue that they are passively lying to us. At the very least, they are abdicating half the job of whiskey making. They have no decision to make about their water source. They have no control of their mash-bill. And these are two vital components in the whiskey’s final flavour.

In this, they remind me of people who come up to you and say something along the lines of: “You’re a writer? I’ve got a great idea for a movie. If I tell you the idea, then you can write it and we’ll split the money.” To which I would reply either, “The idea’s the easy bit, you numpty,” or, “Fuck off.”

Buying from third party distillers is cynical and disingenuous. And it will continue for as long as there is no reason for brands to tell us where the spirit in the bottle actually comes from.

In the mean time, if you’re looking for something that has been loved from beginning to end of its creation, make sure the bottle tells you where it was distilled.

In Praise Of Well Liquor #1—Gin

You don’t need me to tell you that premium liquor’s all the rage. All those sexy bottles, disporting themselves, flashing their labels, revelling in their shelf presence. Time to spare a thought for some of the others. The stuff hidden in the well. What you get if you just order a gin and tonic, and forget to specify your premium desires.

The contents of the well, or what’s lurking on the optics, tells you a lot about a joint awfully fast. If you walk in and they try to serve you Gordon’s, you know that they either know nothing about gin or they don’t care about their drinks, and you should leave at once. Gordon’s is a product responsible for more crimes against drinking than the 1980s. More on this soon.

The fact of it is that there is enormous quality lurking at the cheaper end of the market, often hiding right under your nose. And when it comes to gin, that means one thing: Beefeater.

Beefeater is a premium gin hiding behind a very reasonable price. So reasonable, in fact, that I think some people have a snobby tendency to turn up their noses at it.

Bear in mind the following:

It’s made by Desmond Payne, a master distiller who weighs out each botanical by hand for every distillation. His gin is as handmade as anyone else’s.
Desmond oversaw the distilling aspects of MD Charles Rolls (now of Fever-Tree)’s transformation of Plymouth Gin from also-ran to PGI prestige.
Desmond taught the guys behind gin premium-isation trend-setter Sipsmith how to make gin.

This is a man who really knows what he’s doing. If you need a convincer, you need to pop by the Beefeater Distillery, the only place where you can buy Desmond’s limited edition experiments in gin, my favourite of which is the subtly spectacular London Garden, which makes the most delicate martini I have ever had.

Some people out there are doing fascinating things with gin, interesting things with florals, spice, citrus, tea, you name it. (Someone—and you know who you are—is even doing hideous things with pine to create a gin which makes a martini that tastes like Toilet Duck, so let’s step away from that while we still can.)

You’re welcome to them.

Beefeater’s my buddy, and I can see no earthly reason why anyone would order anything else.

What Is And What Is Not A Martini

Let’s kick this off properly with a drink that divides opinion. The Martini.

A wise woman once wrote that a martini is made with gin, a vodka martini is made with vodka, and an apple martini is an abomination. I know this because I’m married to her. And I agree.

Which is probably just as well.

But let’s go further.

The famous “martini” at Duke’s is not a martini. It is a large glass of cold gin. A martini is a mixed drink. It requires dry vermouth. Now, I don’t care if you add the vermouth with an atomiser, but it must be there.

A martini should be small. It should be very, very cold. And the balance of its dilution over the ice must be tight-rope perfect. Which is why the martini should ideally be stirred. As President Bartlett once said of James Bond’s shaken specimens, “He’s ordering a weak martini and being snooty about it.”

And, to go a little further still, a martini is made of two ingredients, chilled over ice, served “up”, and garnished. Just because your drink is served in a martini (or cocktail) glass, it doesn’t mean it’s a fucking martini. All your lychee martinis, espresso martinis, marmalade martinis and (oh kill me now)_ pornstar martinis… they are not martinis. Why? Because a martini is made with gin and a vodka martini is made with vodka.

All these other drinks may be perfectly enjoyable, though many are not, but they’re just scrabbling for attention on the noble martini’s coat tails. And their names display both a paucity of imagination on the part of their inventors, and a cynical piece of marketing.

To put it another way, the Cosmopolitan is not a cranberry martini.

So you can take your “martini lists”, and shove ’em.