Mixology Monday (Barely)

It's about a quarter till Tuesday right now, actually, but hey...

Gin... I actually bought a bottle specifically for this. I mean, I've always wanted to try it, but (as I am the world's best procrastinator, when I get around to it), I had to wait until I had a "deadline" to actually get some. Sick, isn't it?

I wanted to try a Pegu, but I spent so much money on booze this last week (8 six-packs of Bridgeport IPA, two bottles of vermouth, a bottle of Bombay gin and a bottle of Maker's), I couldn't bring myself to buy Cointreau too (sorry, Doug). Maybe next week. :)

What I did try, I was happy with... which brings us to the drinking part. My favorite.

London Dry Gin (Neat):
A little bit of Bombay (Original)
Glass

Interesting. Not bourbon... but what is, really? I grew up in Juniper country, so the aromas were... nostalgic, I guess. Very interesting.

Dry Martini:
1.5 oz. Gin
.5 oz. Dry Vermouth (M&R, until I go to the city, or get off my lazy you-know-what and buy something nicer online)
Lemon peel garnish

Not exactly my new favorite drink. I love (LOVE) sweet Vermouth, and I don't mind Gin, so it must be the dry vermouth that throws me off this one. I made it pretty wet; maybe I'll try some different ratios, but I can't see this as a regular. Just like in my Manhattans, though, I love the aroma from the lemon peel. No orange bitters yet... see the note about laziness; I could see how they could round out the drink, though.

Sweet Martini:
1.5 oz. Gin
.5 oz. Sweet Vermouth (M&R... see above)
Dash Angostura bitters (no orange bitters yet... see above)
Lemon peel garnish

Much better. I still prefer the Manhattan, but this is going into the rotation. There's something about red vermouth... Maybe it's complexity, maybe I've just got a sweet tooth, I dunno. But it's good stuff. The Angostura, as in any drink, adds a nice je ne sais quois... It may've helped the dry martini, but I didn't want to fsck up my nice clear drink.

Gin and Tonic:
Highball full of ice
1.5 oz. Gin
Top with Tonic water (Schweppes here)
Lime (or Lemon) wedge

Now we're talkin'! See last week's post for more of my feelings for the Gin and Tonic. Love it, love it, love it. Here in the summer (roughly 4/5ths of the year) it'll be a BIG regular. I think God made bourbon and beer on the first day... on the second, He made Gin and Tonic (they really, naturally, go together... every other Gin drink is simply a bastardized G&T). Good stuff.

I leave you tonight (this morning, now) with, again, a quote from The Man:

It is a curious fact, and one to which no one knows quite how much importance to attach, that something like 85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx, or gee-N'N-T'N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand or more variations on the same phonetic theme. The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian 'chinanto/mnigs' which is ordinary water served at slightly above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan 'tzjin-anthony-ks' which kill cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that the names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds.
--Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

G'night.

Edit: I can't believe I was too tired last night (this morning) to remember to give a *ahem* "shout out" to the host of today's (yesterday's) MxMo... so, thank you, Jay at Oh, Gosh! (best url EVAR!).