Thursday, May 24, 2012

the joy of juniper

“I really need a gin and tonic.” --Camilla Parker Bowles


A few days ago I did something I've never done: I attended a gin tasting event. It was fantastic. The Co-Founder and Director of Broker's Gin, Andy Dawson, facilitated the evening's events in College Station, TX (I even walked away with an autographed bottle of Broker's Gin). We sipped, we smelled, we swirled, we laughed, and we learned all about gin--with only one caveat: "Do NOT drink all of the gin in front of you." That was good advice, since we each were sipping from five different glasses of gin.

As the daughter of a good Brit, I'm a huge gin fan. Huge. In fact, it's my favorite spirit (and boy, do I enjoy some spirits). For an alcohol beverage to be classified as gin, it need only meet three criteria: (1) It starts from a liquid base mash/spirit (e.g., corn, wheat, barley); (2) it contains various botanicals/aromatics (the types and numbers vary, based on the brand of gin ... I learned that my gin preferences lean towards those gins with fewer botanicals); and (3) it's steeped with juniper berries. That's it!

Anyway, I loved every minute of it. And I intend to hold my own "gin tasting evening" at my house sometime in the near future. Good, good times.



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1 comment:

  1. You didn't tell me about this! How fabulous! I can't wait to hear more.

    Now I have to go make a G&T.

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