The Promise of Things to Come

The idea here is that you take a given word and write, off of the top of your head, for ten minutes about it.

Gin
This is a spirit that raises questions:-

With tonic or neat?
Lemon or lime?
Ice or none?

among others.

Recently we have been experimenting, our standing criteria are definitely that there must be ice and lime. We have been trying various ‘artisan’ gins, well, gins from small batch distilleries - these we drink without tonic, just ice and lime. We now think that tonic only has its place if we require a ‘longer’ drink, in which case a more proprietary brand, such as Bombay Sapphire is used. Some gins change in appearance, and actually go cloudy when poured over the ice and lime, whilst other remain clear. Some of the artisan gins have very distinctive smells, for example one of our favourites, Dingle, is flavoured with, among other things, bog myrtle, and the discerning nose can detect it. Similarly the ‘botanicals’ used for flavouring provide a variety of different tastes. One recent gin that we tried, Old Tom, was far too sweet for our taste. I love the feel of a really good gin in the mouth, it’s like liquid love passing over the tongue.