What Kind Of Gin Should I Use To Make A Gin And Tonic
When making gin and tonics, choose a gin that is mid- to high-shelf. A London dry gin , Plymouth or Bombay work well. London dry gins will be more straightforward in flavor while Plymouth gin will be a bit more aromatic. Weve also used Bombay Sapphire and loved it, but we really enjoy Sapphires extra spiciness.
Best Overall: Bg Reynolds Original Orgeat Cocktail Syrup
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Though Momose likes to make her own syrups, making orgeat is “quite time-consuming and intense, she says. For a shortcut, she goes for BG Reynolds.
Amber-hued and interspersed with ground almonds, this cane-sweetened syrup adds “glorious texture to classic tiki drinks like the Scorpion, the Mai Tai, and the Japanese Cocktail: a blend of cognac, Angostura bitters and orgeat that doesnt sound like its going to work, but then does, says Momose. Add a touch of lemon, and the roundness of this orgeat plays beautifully with the fruity notes in the cognac.
Best Club Soda: Fever Tree Club Soda
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This one was a difficult one for me, but if I had to choose I would go with Fever-Tree, says Gill. They have so many great options for mixers that have great flavors, from different types of tonics to club sodas. Cant go wrong with them.
The club soda is simple and refreshing, made using spring water and bicarbonate of soda that yields a satisfyingly bubbly experience. Add some vodka to this and a slice of lime for a simple, refreshing drink.
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Best Gin Cocktails For Alfresco Aperitifs
Forgive us for tooting our own trumpet, but we reckon The Frogmill has the best outdoor dining in Cheltenham. Our stunning hotel, restaurant and pub in the Cotswolds boasts a picture-perfect patio it really is a panoramic pick-me-up .
And it would feel wrong while youre waiting for your delicious dinner to be served not to drink in the view while sipping on something summery and salubrious. Our attentive bar staff would be only too pleased to help with that, the question is, what tipple tickles your fancy?
We thought wed provide some inspiration, so heres our list of 5 gin cocktails that make awesome alfresco aperitifs
What Is The Healthiest Mix For Gin
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What Mixes Well With Gin Is There A Perfect Gin Mixer
The first rule of drinking good gin is to use a good mixer. You can easily ruin an excellent gin by adding a sub-par mixer.
Tonic: The classic mixer
The classic mixer for gin is tonic – a drink developed by the administrators of the British Empire who drank tonic water for its anti-malarial quinine but who found it a little bitter.
They added gin and – hey presto – one of the most famous and enduring cocktails in history was born.
So tonic is the go-to mixer. If youre drinking a premium gin like York Gin, make sure you choose a premium tonic. There are some fabulous premium tonics on the market. Invest some time and effort into finding your favourite.
So-da so good
Tonic is far from the only mixer for gin.
Often, people who say they dont like gin actually dont like the taste of the tonic in a G& T.
An alternative mixer for a fizzy long gin drink is soda.
It has all the bubbles but none of the quinine that some people can find too bitter. We think gin and soda has a long and successful future ahead.
Other mixers
Lime cordial: This creates a classic Gimlet cocktail. Add Rose’s lime cordial to gin and ice for a very dry drink!
Lemonade: A sweeter alternative to tonic. Lots of people love this in the newer fruit gins that have appeared in recent years. Its great in York Gin Roman Fruit.
And finally: Try your own – some people like ginger ale or ginger beer, other fruit juices or cordials or even Coke!
Gin cocktails
Amass Los Angeles Dry Gin
When we say that gin is exciting right now, were talking about brands like AMASS Los Angeles. The inspiration is in the name, as the gin sources botanicals that reflect Southern Californias diverse agricultural offerings. A hefty 29 botanicals make up the gin, and some of them are quite unexpected, such as California Bay, Hibiscus and two kinds of mushrooms. The flavor is primarily earthy and herbal, with strong ingredients namely cardamom and coriander giving the juniper some competition. Overall, its an exciting, complex gin that every connoisseur needs to try.
Courtesy Drizly.com
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Best For Vodka & Tonic: Boylan Tonic Water
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Sure, the Gin & Tonic gets all the hype, but a Vodka Tonic can be just as tasty. Obviously, the tonic water you choose is going to have a big effect on your drink, so its important to pick a good one.
Boylan Bottling uses a blend of citrus to balance the bitterness from the quinine, bringing a crisp hint of sour to the mixer and making this tonic water stand out from the rest.
Explore Gin’s Versatility In These Favorite Drinks
Gin is a fascinating liquor to explore. Its botanicals give it a characteristic that no other liquor has one brand can have a completely different profile from another and it is surprisingly versatile when it comes to flavor profiles. Gin is also the foundation for some of the best drinks ever made, including the iconic martini.
Though certainly not as numerous as vodka cocktails, there are thousands of great gin cocktails to explore and the list can be quite overwhelming. Some cocktails work best with a specific gin, some are for acquired tastes and others are reliable and always there for us when we need them.
If you’re just starting out on your journey through the world of gin cocktails, we recommend the ones listed below as essential to your experience. All are quite popular, some more than others, and each has a different appeal that has drawn in drinkers year after year for decades.
The selections include gin at its best in the simplest of mixes as well as in the more complicated, often disputed, and finely balanced recipes. These classics are some of the most timeless drinks that you will find.
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Casamara Club Sparkling Amaro Soft Drinks
On the non-alcoholic side, I love Casamara Clubs leisure sodas, which come in a variety of configurations reminiscent of Italian amaro. These drinks are a year-round staple for me. John deBary, founder & CEO of Proteau and
Buy: Casamara Club Sparkling Amaro Soft Drink Variety Pack, $30 for 6 bottles at Casamara Club
Whats your favorite canned cocktail? Tell us in the comments below.
Our Pick For 201: Fever Tree Tonic Water
Fever Trees main tonic, fully sweetened, we think is simply the best tonic out there.
Designed to be an upgrade from your standard supermarket tonic water, Fever Trees classic tonic water has a gentle sweetness, a clean, crisp dash of quinine and bitterness, and small, tight carbonation bubbles. The balanced flavor of the tonic lets the flavor of your gin come through and the clean, slightly bitter finish whets the palate just enough. Overall, its my favorite and my-go-to tonic water. I cant recommend it strongly enough.
Honorable Mentions
Brooklyns Q Tonic is still just as worthy of note as ever, but its their Q Indian Tonic Water that gave Fever Trees Indian Tonic a run for its money this year.
If youre located in the European Union or U.K. Markets take a look for the bitter, citron kissed Tassoni Tonica or upstart newcomers Double Dutch who wowed us several times last year with their line of mixers. If youre looking for an alternative to the above, check out Double Dutch Indian Tonic Water.
For more tonic water reviews, check out our tonic water archive.
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Caorunn Highland Strength Scottish Gin
Bottled at 54 percent ABV, Caorunn Highland Strength delivers a supercharged G& T. Its relatively high alcohol content also allows the spirits character to shine when topped with a hearty pour of tonic. Expect a strong presence of Scottish botanicals heather, dandelion, and Coul Blush apple. Average price: $40.
The 15 Best Gins For Gin And Tonics
Gin and Tonics are the coffee of the cocktail world difficult to fully appreciate at first but once you jump on board, you wonder how you ever lived without them.
Served over ice with a citrus garnish, G& Ts deliver all the refreshment of simpler highballs but dial up the complexity with an array of botanicals from the base spirit and the challenging bittersweet profile oftonic water.
With just two components, quality of base ingredients becomes paramount. While tonic water options have expanded in recent years, the gin category continues to flourish at an even more impressive rate, with distillers introducing new botanicals and reimagining the spirits flavor profile.
Combining a mix of mainstays and modern marvels, the following 15 bottles not only deliver on quality, but jive with their tricky pairing partner to serve the most impressive versions of the cocktail. Here are the best gins for Gin and Tonics.
Looking for our best Gins? See our best gin brands for every budget.
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Franklin & Sons Ginger Beer
Taking it up a notch, Franklin & Sons award-winning ginger beer has a unique twist, as it is perfectly complemented by a sharp citrusy edge. The recipe for this gin can be traced back to the Victorian era in England, making it perfect for those classic gin cocktail recipes. We would highly recommend using ginger beer to make a Foghorn cocktail.
Plymouth Navy Strength Gin
Another great offering from Plymouth is their Navy Strength gin. Plymouth was actually the first brand to officially market Navy Strength gin in 1997, which has since become a whole category of its own.
If youre unfamiliar with Navy Strength, it just means strong, or over-proof. This bottle boasts an ABV of 57%, which is a substantial jump from the 45%-ish ABV of normal gin. Plymouths Navy Strength is one of the best because it actually wrangles this high alcohol content with a balanced and surprisingly smooth taste. Of course, the punchiness is still there, making the Navy Strength gin a great option for bold cocktails and adventurous gin tasting.
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Best Overall: Q Sparkling Grapefruit
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Region: USA | ABV: 0% | Tasting Notes: Grapefruit, Sugar, Bitter
There are many options to choose from when looking for a gin mixer, but this grapefruit-flavored soda from Q Mixers is one of the best. Its flavored with Florida grapefruit and has a nice balance of tart, sweet, and sugara combination of flavors that works well with any gin you choose, from dry to floral, sweet to spicy, and everything in between. Just fill up a highball glass with ice, add a couple of ounces of gin, top off with this mixer, and enjoy.
Best Drinks To Mix With Gin
While there are plenty of liquors you can pick up knowing they’re super versatile and likely to work with almost anything that’s in the fridge and yes, we’re looking at you, vodka gin generally isn’t one of those. There’s a gin and tonic, and … what else?
Admittedly, gin can be tough. It has a distinctive flavor profile that can be described as anything from “botanical” to “Christmas tree,” and everything in between those two. Gin, says MasterClass, is defined in part by the use of juniper berries in the distillation process, and it’s those berries that give this popular liquor that pine-tree, evergreen taste.
For those who might skip the gin because they’re not fans of a gin and tonic, we have good news: There are a ton of other drinks you can use as a base for some truly incredible gin cocktails. Some probably have a permanent spot in the fridge already, and if some are the sort of thing you pick up on occasion, let’s be honest: These ideas are reason enough to spring for that nice bottle of gin.
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Best Organic: Tres Agaves Margarita Mix
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Tres Agaves are tequila producers, so they understand the makings of a Margarita. This clean, all-natural mixer, made only of agave, lime, purified water and vitamin C, leans far more into its citrusy side than it does into its sweetness.
Baker thinks this was the right move: It allows people to add more sugar, if they prefer, and it leaves your Margarita flexible enough to take on liqueurs or syrups without throwing it out of balance.
Lemon Juice Or Lemonade
The choice between these two comes down to whether you want a sweet drink or not. If youre looking for something simple, citrusy, and bitter, go for the lemon juice. If its a hot day and youre going to be sitting on the porch with an aunt who never knows when to shut up about, well, everything, then go with the lemonade. The lemon smell and the sugar content will cover up the gin and youll be able to get through every tangent your aunt has on every topic from aardvarks to the inevitable heat death of the universe.
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Best Tonic: Top Note Classic Tonic Water
Momose is a fan of this Milwaukee craft brand. It offers a slightly larger, peppier bubble than others, she says. It also uses both quinine and gentian as bittering agents, which gives it an earthy gravity. Its a bit more grounded than other tonics, she notes. This means the mixer pairs nicely with the new class of craft ginsletting their bright citrus notes shine instead of overwhelming those flavors.
She also recommends Top Notes club soda, especially for Japanese highballs. In general, she finds the Top Notes carbonation level just right for pulling the flavor out of the spirit.
The 7 Best Gin Mixers To Have In Your Pantry This 2021
With so much time being spent in our houses, many of us are spending more time indulging in the finer things in life namely, whatever liquor weve stocked up on. If youre like some of us here at The Manual, that includes copious amounts of gin and now, days into quarantine, the fancy cocktail ingredients you may have stocked up on are most likely running out. Instead, its time to switch to basic mixers for your essential gin cocktails.
The joy of gin is that there are so many styles and botanical blends out there that you can find a flavor profile for just about any palate. That wide variety, too, means that you can utilize a number of different mixers for simple, delicious drinks. Listed below are the best mixers weve pulled together so you can stock up on for when you need a gin drink.
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Orange And Other Citrus Sodas
There is a great range of orange sodas from Fanta , the French Orangina and a firm favourite of many San Pellegrino.
When combined with gin, it makes a drink that is delightfully summery. I would recommend serving it Gin Tonica style with plenty of ice and a fresh citrus garnish youll feel like youre sippin on sunshine!
Other citrus sodas include Fanta Lemon, which is notably popular as a gin mixer in Spain and the Balearic Islands it also mixes wonderfully with sloe gin. The Double Lemon from Double Dutch has a similar character, but with the added bitterness of quassia bark. Finally, there is Ting, a grapefruit-flavoured soda that comes from the Caribbean.
The 5 Best Mixers To Try After Having Gin And Tonic
Newbies to the drinking scene have most likely heard of gin, given that it’s one of the most popular alcoholic drinks. In fact, the United Kingdom even experienced a “ginaissance” in recent years, with the drink’s sales breaking two billion pounds from 2016-2018.
There are many ways to drink gin. Some prefer to drink it straight, which allows them to appreciate the subtle flavours that come with the drink. Others have their gin with tonic, a mixture of carbonated water and bitter-tasting quinine, an alkaloid derived from cinchona bark.
Now, if you don’t want to drink gin straight or have it with tonic, you can try other mixers, some of which we’ll discuss below.
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From Sodas To Syrups To Tonics These Top Mixers Will Up Your Vodka Game
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Vodka was until recently, by legal definition, a flavorless, odorless spirit . Of course, fans of this clear spirit would disagree, arguing that each brand has different flavors depending on the grains used in the mash bill, how many times its been distilled, and what country it comes from. And vodka enthusiasts also know how well it works in a variety of cocktails, from the Moscow Mule to a Screwdriver to the humble Vodka & Tonic.
There are many different vodka mixers to choose from, ranging from simple flavored seltzer to a one-step Cosmopolitan combination of cranberry and lime juice. We spoke to some bar industry experts and gathered our own picks of the best vodka mixers that you can buy now.