What gin goes with
Gin is grain alcohol with juniper as the mandatory flavouring, plus everything else the distiller adds: citrus, coriander, clove, flowers or cucumber.
A London Dry sticks to juniper and citrus and stays dry. Newer gins more often emphasise flowers or fruit; those call for a different tonic and a different garnish.
The garnish is not decoration. A strip of lemon peel brings the citrus part forward, a sprig of rosemary the herbal part. Choose what is already in the gin and add that; do not put something beside it that is not in it.
How to serve it
- Glass
- A balloon glass or a tall glass, generously filled with ice so that the ice melts slowly.
- Temperature
- Nice and cold. A lukewarm gin and tonic turns watery before it is finished.
- Neat or mixed
- Almost always mixed: with tonic, in a martini or in a negroni. Drinking it neat happens with the heavier, cask-aged gins.
What it goes with
- oysters
- smoked salmon
- prawns
- olives and anchovies
- goat's cheese
- cucumber salad
- sushi
This applies to the type as a whole. What an individual bottle does is on the page of that bottle.
A recommendation of its own with every bottle of gin
On the page of every bottle of gin in the shop there is a recommendation of its own: something with the meal or the drinks, a cheese and something for afterwards, with the shopping list and the preparation.