24 Setembro, 2014

Fuck Your Designer Gin & Tonic

(To all you newly minted Gin pedants)

Up until not long ago, ordering a Gin & Tonic was a simple affair, as it consisted of saying: “I’ll have a Gin & Tonic, please”.

Much to my dismay, and since the other option would have been to stop drinking them altogether, this is how I have to order it these days:

“I’ll have a Gin & Tonic, please. Wait!

I’ll have it in a highball glass, with just ice, gin, tonic and a lime wedge. I do not want the coupe glass, or giant bucket, or whatever the crap you call that ice-filled thing. You can skip the straw (two, sometimes!), as well, seen that I’m not twelve and you’re not serving me a Tang.

Please avoid adding juniper berries, pepper corns, basil, cucumber, thyme, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, lavender, or any other ingredient, even if it has been lovingly harvested under the full moon, on the altitudinal zones of the Swiss Alps, by a herd of enchanted unicorns.

You can skip the stupid pouring of the tonic over the twisted stir spoon, “to avoid bubbles”. You’re not “avoiding bubbles”, you’re just feeding your smugness; I’m the one paying for this drink, so go be a pompous fool on someone else’s money.

Actually, don’t pour the tonic at all, bring the opened bottle. You may have read the many opinions on gin-to-tonic ratios, and your bar even has a Gin & Tonic “menu” to indicate how confident you feel in your skills in treating the people you serve as ignorant nitwits, but since it is my drink, I’ll determine the ratio by myself, like a grown-up, thank you.

As to the gin itself, and keeping in mind that this is a cocktail with more tonic and ice than actual gin, any decent London dry gin will do. Please stop with the endless discussions of the peculiarities of gin A, B and C, and how their bouquets, aroma and distillation process differ from each other in, oh, so subtle and magical ways. The truth of the matter is that in a mixture raped by too much ice, fancy tonics and herbal mixtures concocted by a self-important apothecary, the particulars of any gin are lost to the taste buds of most of your clientele, not to mention your own; you could probably replace the gin with vodka and they wouldn’t even notice (because those of us who truly care about gin differences drink proper dry martinis, anyway).

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All that said, I do usually avoid ranting about how I’m not looking for the “truly premium experience” of enjoying “boutique gins that offer affordable luxury”.

One wouldn’t want to come across as rude, after all.

#Dry Martini#Gin#Gin & Tonic