Mister Cocktail

The story of Monkey47 is that of Montgomery Collins, who was posted in Berlin’s British sector after the end WWII. He was struck by the massive destruction that had taken place there and he decided to spend his time helping to rebuild it. His focus was the Berlin Zoo, where he became sponsor of a monkey called Max.

He left the air force in the early 50s, to start  a career in watchmaking. This turned out not be his calling, but he found himself in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald), a great natural area where he not only opened a guesthouse called “The Wild Monkey”, but also started making his own gin. He was British after all.

Montgomery kept the recipe a secret, hidden in a box in his guesthouse, which was discovered some 50 years later. It was decorated with the drawing of a monkey and the words “Max the monkey – Schwarzwalder Dry Gin”. In 2008 the recipe was restored and brought to market.

Lovely soft smell of juniper and lemon, slightly peppery and with floral notes.
All the flavours come to life in your mouth, very well balanced and although there are some main flavours to identify, the 47 different botanicals are working together so well that it’s difficult to identify each individual.

Schweppes: The delicate palate of Monkey47 does not match very well with the dominant flavours of Schweppes. Both the strong sweetness and the long bitterness in the tonic just overpower the gin. I stopped tasting there.
6.0/10

Fever Tree: This is a great combination: the soft citric notes and the juniper in Monkey47 stay upright because of the light flavour of Fever Tree. This tonic water has a subtle bitterness in it and it balances out very nicely with the sweet and floral notes in the gin. The mix is very smooth and I like it how many of the different berries in Monkey47 create a wonderful fruity flavour in here.
9.0/10

Fentiman’s: There’s a lot of citric notes in this mix and there’s an overlap in ingredients that Money47 and Fentiman’s are using: Kaffir lime. Together the sweeter and fruity notes work very well, giving it a very long aftertaste. The more floral notes in the gin, like Jasmin and Chamomile, are highlighted in the mix with Fentiman’s.
9.0/10

Conclusion: Both the Fever Tree and the Fentiman’s work great with Monkey47, which is a very well balanced yet delicate gin. I have given both mixes the same rating, but notice that the are not the same mixes at all! But I just like both combinations equally much

Almost 3 years ago, London saw the birth of a new distillery, the first one to be given a distillers’ license in almost 200 years. The founders, Sam Galsworthy and Fairfax Hall, and their master distiller, Jared Brown, wanted to distill London Dry Gin like it used to be done: in small batches, one shot and by pot-still. This already sets them apart from other new-comers, which were more focused on finding new ingredients to be used in a gin. To make sure they could achieve their mission, they sourced the best classical gin-ingredients from around the globe and they designed a still that they named Prudence, a word they derived off of a quote by Gordon Brown.

The gin is very smooth, almost buttery with the fresh pine taste of juniper coming through in the beginning. There are some very pleasant sweet notes like liquorice, cinnamon and orange in it, together with subtle floral notes from orris root. The finish has great citric notes in it from coriander and lemon-peel.

Schweppes: This combination is pretty smooth, but with a bite. It leaves a dry bitterness at the end, while the overall taste is sweet. It definitely needs lime in this mix, but even with fresh lime the Schweppes is the stronger agent of the 2.
7.5/10

1724: Soft and sweet is the first mouthfeel I get: the gentle bubble in the 1724 plays really nice with the Sipsmith, that releases a slight bitterness and at the same timegives room for the pleasant sweet notes. It leans a bit to the boring side however as they play along nicely but in the aftertaste it regains a bit of those pine flavours.
8.5/10

Fever Tree: Every aspect of the Sipsmith Gin gets room to move around in this mix. All the botanicals in it have just the space it needs, while it gets the right counterbalance by Fever Tree. Combined with some fresh lime it gets a very smooth and long finish with just a little bit of bitterness in it, the freshness of this mix is just great.
9.5/10

Thomas Henry: Again, a very soft nose and I get a lot of flavours right at the beginning: lots of lemon, pine and orange. Strangely, most of these flavours disappear in the middle, are overtaken by the sweeter notes after which the lemon returns full force. The aftertase is mainly lemon with some bitterness. It’s interesting how it developes: it’s a very fresh mix but it loses some points due to ‘middle part’.
8/10

Fentiman’s: The combined citric tones in the tonic and gin make this a very refreshing mix. Fresh lime is still needed though, to prevent it from becoming perfumed. There’s a long bitterness in the aftertaste, although there’s an all-over pleasant sweet taste to this mix.
9/10

Conclusion: Sipsmith Gin is an amazing product and the creators have rally achieved thier goals. It mixes wonderfully with Fentiman’s and Fever Tree and it comes down to personal taste which of the two one prefers. For me, the mix with Fever Tree had a more complete taste so in my opionion the best mixer with Sipsmith Gin!

About 30 years before the launch of Bombay Sapphire, Alan Subin and Burton Brown, two old friends, decided to work on a gin together. They had these talks in the Gaslight Club in New York, which was co-owned by Brown. The Gaslight Club was a speakeasy, members-only concept that originated in Chicago, with Prohibition lifted not long before. The two gentlemen travelled to the United Kingdom and found a recipe that dated back to 1761 and contained 8 botanicals: Juniper, Lemon peel, Coriander seeds, Orris, Angelica, Almonds, Liquorice and Cassia Bark. The recipe called for a ‘vapour distillation’ which means that the botanicals are not boiled or steeped with the grain alcohol, but placed above it, so the fumes pick up the flavours.

Bombay Original has a lovely nose, with juniper, coriander and liquorice dominating. The taste is full-bodied with slightly bitter juniper and coriander with angelica at first and more sweet notes from cinnamon and liquorice coming through after that.

I seems a great gin for mixing with tonic water, accessible for everyone, even people who think not to like gin. How does this gin work with my 3 selected Tonic Waters?

Schweppes: This tonic water is high in carbonation and quite sweet, giving it a somewhat perfumed taste. It adds  a lot of sweetness to Bombay Original and really needs some lime to get back to that freshness. I have the feeling that the tonic is overpowering the gin a bit, although there’s still plenty of room for Bombay Original to shine.
7/10

Fever Tree: There is so much more space for Bombay Original in this mix. The lime really finishes the drink, although they taste already great together without a garnish. The carbonation in Fever Tree works great in both the glass and in your mouth and the relatively low levels of acidity in the tonic are compensated beautifully by Bombay Original.
9/10

Fentiman’s: This is the most eccentric tonic water of the bunch and already from the smell on you notice how different it is. It is strong in citric notes and bitterness from the quinine and are maybe a bit too strong for the Bombay Original, although all flavours taste very natural together.
8/10

Conclusion: With just the addition of a basic garnish like fresh lime it clear that the best Tonic Water with this Bombay Original Dry Gin is Fever Tree. It leaves room in exactly those places where the gin is strong and compensates the areas in which Bombay Original has less flavour. The complement each other in a beautiful way and although they are not the most adventurous combination, it is highly recommended.

What better way to celebrate the first day of Easter then enjoying a nice G&T! I noticed a less then half-full bottle of Geranium Gin in my cupboard and realised I never tasted it in the mix with Tonic – always in cocktails or neat, strangely. So here we go, in combination with Fever Tree Tonic Water. Happy Easter!

Geranium Gin is a Danish brand created by Henrik Hammer and his father, who worked around the concept of incorporating geranium in a gin. They found historical links between the use of Juniper and Geranium and investigated this combination on a scientific level. They concluded that these two are indeed a great marriage and they proceeded with the development of the gin. It is a London Dry Gin, which means that all 10 botanicals (of which 1 is a secret!) are distilled at once in a neutral grain spirit. The production of the gin takes place in the U.K. (Birmingham more precisely) and Geranium Gin is distilled in a copper pot-still that’s over a century old.

When tasted neat, Geranium Gin is a very smooth and mild spirit. It combines the freshness of lemon (coriander, lemon) and juniper very stylishly with the floral taste of geranium. What a surprising ingredient! The taste is full-bodied, but never out of balance with a great sweetness from liquorice and orange.

Fever Tree Tonic has been used by me for several other gins and I chose this today again after tasting the Geranium Gin. I figured these two could match very well: they’re both not too sweet and could complement each other on the levels of bitter and sour flavours.

The combination is an extremely smooth G&T. The bitter notes from the quinine in Fever Tree are nicely balanced by the geranium, which still doesn’t overpower. The long lemony taste from Geranium Gin gives the drink a very long aftertaste, which made me decide not to use a juice-containing garnish in here. Instead of a lime or lemonwedge, I used an orangezest which made the drink just perfect for me.

Rating: 9.5/10

Barbados is said to be the place where the history of rum started. A document found in 1651 stated: “The chief fuddling they make in the island is Rumbullion, alias Kill-Divil, and this is mad of sugar canes distilled, a hot, hellish, and terrible liquor.”
Fortunately for us all this changed for the better and since then the category of rum has developed itself into the most diverse of all spirits. But above all: it became a way of life

The Grande Reserve Barbados 5 YO is one of the finest rums in the range of Rhum Plantation, a brand created by Pierre Ferrand, a French company also famous for making great Cognac. Their way of working is to blend rums that are specific to a region (for example Jamaica, Nicaragua, Guyana etc), age them together in oak barrels and ship this blend to France. There the blends are each put into old cognac-barrels for one more year.

The bottle: Most of the rums by Plantation are packed in a sleek, ling bottle, but the GRB5 is an exception to this. It’s a short bottle, for a bit more of that pirate-feeling. It’s packed in a straw netting and combined with the nice label, embossed logo and name of Plantation on the bottle, it’s sure to stand out in your liquor-cabinet. Also notice that the cork has a very tight fit, giving a nice pop when you pull it out, releasing some of the great flavours inside!
92/100

The nose: The nose of this rum is beautifully balanced: sweet notes like vanilla and butterscotch with a bit of coconut are accompanied by wood-tones coming from the oak-barrels that are used for the first 5 years. I also get sweet sherry-like tones from the fine cognacbarrel that is used for the last year.
94/100

The contents: The cognac-finish is very clear in the taste, with sweet notes like banana, toffee and coconut coming through. The taste is long, a bit sweet, yet wonderfully complex. Spices like nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla make the complex part, alongside with fruits like banana and orange. The middle of the taste is a bit flat, but soon the aftertaste takes over. I love it how you can taste the minerals in the aftertaste: they stick in your mouth and keep adding flavour and depth. Try rubbing your tongue over your gums and notice how much flavour there is left from the rum (or that a strange suggestion?)
93/100

The mixability: This rum is great as a sipping rum, but it provides a great cocktail ingredient as well. There’s a whole range of grateful tropical cocktail, perfect to prepare with the Grande Reserve. I gave it a try in the Mai Tai, for which I found a great easy-to-make recipe by Max La Rocca (who’s cocktail the Irish Mermaid I reviewed yesterday), which is a simplified take on the David Wondrich Mai Tai. Perfect to try at home!

Overall: This is one rum that you’ll never regret to have bought. You’ll probably recommend it to friends and buy a second bottle when your first one is finished. I know I have! Because of the great versatility you can use it in so many different ways and on different moments
93/100

Method:

Combine 50 ml/1.6 oz Plantation Grande Reserve Barbados 5 YO, 15 ml/0.5 oz Dry Curacao, 15 ml/0.5 oz fresh limejuice and 15 ml/0.5 oz orgeat syrup in a shaker. Shake well and strain in a tumbler filled with icecubes. Crushed ice is even better, but don’t go out of your way to smash your precious icecubes if you’re low on those. Do you have some mint lying around, or growing on your balcony/garden? Grab a nice sprig to garnish the cocktail with! Enjoy!

All over the world bartenders are always looking for new combinations of flavours and spirits. Thta’s how it used to be and that’s how things will probably be forever. Because by doing this, new cocktails are born, just like you would try to do at home with cooking or maybe when you’re mixing your own cocktails.

Last week I wrote about the Gin Basil Smash – a cocktail that made  it’s way from a local bar to the gallery of Contemporary Classics. That cocktail was created by a great bartender called Jörg Meyer and the good thing is that around the world there are more bartenders curious enough to explore new combinations of flavours.

One of these bartenders is Max La Rocca, bartender at Ohla Boutique Bar in Barcelona, well worth the visit for a number of reasons, the person said being a one of them! Max is a very talented host and bartender, being amongst the leading explorists of new ways to create cocktails and drinking experiences for their customers. His bar previous bar was famous for their afternoon tea and he was looking for ways to incorporate the drinking of cocktails into the teadrinking-ritual. Also because he liked to serve cocktails rather then serving tea. The cocktail he designed for this is based on the way to serve tea, poured from a teapot. He named his drink “Irish Mermaid” for two reasons: the base ingredient for this cocktail is Irish Whiskey and the second reason is to pay his homage to the statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, where the Cherry Heering Liqueur is from.

Method:
Pour 35 ml a good quality Irish Whiskey, 10 ml Cherry Heering, 10 ml Aperol, 5 ml Orgeat Syrup and 2 dashes Angostura Bitters in a small teapot. Add ice and pour the contents into a small container, with enough room for the liquid to move around and to start foaming. Put the liquid back in the teapot and repeat all five or six times, when you think it’s ready!

Serve the drink in a nice cocktailglass (I used a small wineglass here) and use a nice zest of orange to garnish the drink.
You can do this by cutting a 2 x 5 cm piece of zest with a peeler, place it between your thumb and indexfinger and squeeze it with the orange side towards the glass.

“New Western Dry” is the proclamation that Aviation Gin makes, indicating this is going to be something different than the gins that are around. The creators of this spirit, which was launched in 2006, have chosen a rather unusual set of botanicals to work with, outside of the compulsory Juniper of course and the best-known citrus flavouring agent in any gin, Coriander. One of the first botanicals that you can taste is Cardamom, giving it a spicy citrus flavour, reminiscent of ginger. Other eccentric ingredients are Lavender, giving Aviation Gin a sweet floral and mellow taste, while the distinct sweetness comes from the Anise-seed which gives a liquorice-like taste to the spirit. Another citrusfruit that has been added is orange in the shape of Dried Orange Peel which shines through in the aftertaste really nice.

My Tonic Water for today is Fever Tree, which has a nice bitter taste from real quinine, together with a pleasant natural sweetness that does not come from loads of added sugars and that has a nice liquorice taste as well.

These two great products have a lot of similarities: both carry the sweetness of liquorice and both have nice gentle citric flavour.  On the other hand they have some very distinct differences in flavour: Aviation Gin has nice floral notes from the lavender, while Fever Tree has a stronger bitterness. Could these two be the perfect match for each other?

The strong taste of Cardamom is even more accentuated by the bitter components of Fever Tree Tonic. Somehow this keeps lingering for a long time, dominating the sweeter notes of Anise-seed and orange. The citric notes stay there, but also battling with the strong combination of cardamom and quinine. These two products are great on their won, but together they don’t create that magic. Let’s see what other tonic waters can do for Aviation Gin! But that’s for a next time.

Rating: 7/10

I recently came across this bottle and it immediately drew my attention. The design of the bottle has been done really well and it invited me to taste the contents as well. The Double Rye! hasn’t got the exclamation mark for nothing – it is an indication that this is a special blend of two rye whiskies: The youngest is a 2-year-old that has a 95 % rye and 5 % barley mash. The older (16! year old) whiskey has a much lower level of rye: 53 % (note that 51 % is the legal minumum to be called a rye whiskey) and 37 % corn mixture. “The extra age and corn provides some sweetness to calm the “bite” of the younger rye for a relationship that works”. That’s a quote from their website, sometimes things are put into words just very well – no need for me to re-phrase that.

The bottle: This one’s a little rough around the edges, which is a great attribute for a rye whiskey. Light green glass with tiny airbubbles caught inside with the name and logo of the distillery  embossed. The label is mad of heavy, rough recycled paper, displaying a cowboy entering a saloon. The backlabel has a great promise: “Dedicated to the cowboy in all of us”. The wooded cork is a nice touch as well.
92/100

The nose: The heavy wood-tones of the youngest rye shine through immediately. I get a nice spicy nose, a little sherry-menthol and apple.
89/100

The contents: Again, the sharp, but never unpleasant wood and burnt oak come through. It has a slightly sweet undertone of vanilla and butterscotch, which balances nicely with the spicier notes of cloves, anis and mint. In the aftertaste there’s again some fruit that I got in the nose as well.
88/100

The mixability: This is great to drink neat, or on the rocks, but it’s also good for cocktails. I tried the Double Rye! in 3 variations of a Manhattan in a combination of Noilly Prat Rouge and Martini Extra Dry and my favourite was the Sweet Manhatta. The shaprer notes in this whiskey were too much accentued for my taste to use with a dry Vermouth, but I suggest for you to try it yourself, for your taste may be quite different from mine! Recipe below.

Overall: All in all it is a very pleasant Rye Whiskey, and certainly not middle-of-the-road. And that’s not how this Double Rye! is intended to be.
89/100

Method: Manhattan
Combine 55 mls/1.9 oz of High West Double Rye!, 35 mls/1.2 oz Sweet Vermouth and 2 dashes of Angostura Bitters in a mixingglass and stirr with lots of ice. Strain into a chilled cocktailglass and garnish with a good orangezest – squeezed over the glass.