Because gins are quite strongly flavoured (relatively speaking) and the mixers less so, you can very clearly taste different gins, unlike dumping a can of coke into whisky where the coke just obliterates any subtlety or nuance to the flavour a posh whisky may have over a bottle of cheap JD.
Never tried Gin before
- Thread starter Minibiker
- Start date
Because gins are quite strongly flavoured (relatively speaking) and the mixers less so, you can very clearly taste different gins, unlike dumping a can of coke into whisky where the coke just obliterates any subtlety or nuance to the flavour a posh whisky may have over a bottle of cheap JD.
I don’t think that it works that way, at least I doubt that it would for me.
I can’t imagine pouring a generous measure of Crown Royal Canadian whisky, then drowning it in Canada Dry ginger ale.
I’ll drink gin if there’s no vodka available, and any vodka will get you hammered if you drink enough of it.
However, although I don’t consider myself a connoisseur, no matter how much or how little tonic water that you add, the taste of inferior vodka will always be apparent.
Absolut, Stolychnya, Grey Goose, Finlandia, all (to me), taste smooth and easy when sipped neat, some others, with generic Russian names like Natasha, Babushka etc., will give you the impression that they’re peeling the enamel from your teeth.
Soldato
Also a gin noob. There seems to be different fever tree tonics, any I should steer clear of?
If you're new to gin and trying a few different ones, I wouldn't confuse things with any other mixer than the plain 'premium Indian tonic water' (yellow label).
Commissario
Fever tree is massively overrated. I spent a long time drinking it because it's so high profile and the “if three-quarters of your drink is the mixer, mix with the best" slogan reeled me in.
I then did some blind tests over a few evenings with identical glasses, identical gins, identical hunks of garnish and identical sized lumps of ice between Fever Tree, Schweppes and Lixir tonics and in every case the Fever tree was my least favourite. Depending on the gin, I preferred Lixir or Schweppes every time. I generally buy the little 150ml tins and I can get a dozen Schweppes from the supermarket for £4 or £3.50 if it's on offer. Fever tree is generally seven quid for eight cans.
Do yourselves a favour, don't get drawn in by the Fever tree advertising.
I always prefer plain Indian tonic water to any of the fancy flavoured tonics because I want to taste the gin, not the tonic. The tonic complements the gin, it shouldn't overpower the flavour. I'm looking at you, Fever tree aromatic
Fever tree is massively overrated. I spent a long time drinking it because it's so high profile and the “if three-quarters of your drink is the mixer, mix with the best" slogan reeled me in.
I then did some blind tests over a few evenings with identical glasses, identical gins, identical hunks of garnish and identical sized lumps of ice between Fever Tree, Schweppes and Lixir tonics and in every case the Fever tree was my least favourite. Depending on the gin, I preferred Lixir or Schweppes every time. I generally buy the little 150ml tins and I can get a dozen Schweppes from the supermarket for £4 or £3.50 if it's on offer. Fever tree is generally seven quid for eight cans.
Do yourselves a favour, don't get drawn in by the Fever tree advertising.
I always prefer plain Indian tonic water to any of the fancy flavoured tonics because I want to taste the gin, not the tonic. The tonic complements the gin, it shouldn't overpower the flavour. I'm looking at you, Fever tree aromatic
It's an issue of taste as I found much the opposite - I dislike the flavour of Schweppes to the point i'd rather not drink a G&T than drink it with Schweppes. I like Fever Tree, currently though using Fentimans and that's very nice (for me).
Getting a selection of a few and blind taste testing is a good way to find out which tonics you like, as you did, I just wouldn't assume everyone would find the same result.
Also, no idea where you've been buying your tonic but i've never seen the 8x150ml boxes of Fever Tree for more than £4/£4.25 - more expensive than Schweppes is for sure but nowhere near £7 for 8x150ml. They do boxes of 15 that are often around the £7 mark as a regular price.
Chacun à son goût as they say, I’m more in line with post # 46 above yours, if Schweppes is unavailable, I’ll take my vodka just with ice.
I respect everyone’s right to drink Fever Tree, but I tried it once in a pub, and it seemed to diminish the taste of the vodka, so it’s not for me.
I only add half of a small Schweppes tonic water bottle to a double vodka, as I prefer to taste the vodka, and not drown it with the mixer.
A bête noire of mine when going into a strange pub was when the bar staff would try to pour the whole bottle of tonic into the vodka, whenever that happened I’d add another double vodka to restore the taste.