Gin & Juice

picture from: http://www.decaturspirits.com

Gin comes in so many pretty bottles!  It's a grain based spirit flavored with juniper berries. Different gins have so many wonderful flavors that make them quite different.

We are very fond of gin in our household. We usually have a couple of different bottles at any one time! My husband is a big fan of Hendrick's. Evidently they add cucumbers and rose petals to the flavoring process! A Hendrick's and tonic will be served with a slice of cucumber. Fiber! I enjoy a little Tanqueray. It has more of the traditional flavorings such as juniper and coriander (cilantro).

What is tonic you may ask? It's slightly sweetened sparkling water flavored with quinine! Quinine has a lot of medicinal uses thus the name "tonic" water. My father had suffered from malaria as a child and he had an inordinate fondness for tonic water . . . flavored with a little gin of course. He was a Beefeater man though.

I made my son a gin and tonic for his 21st birthday. He thought it was the most purely delicious alcoholic drink he'd ever had. I was like "Well of course it's delicious next to that Heineken you just drank!" He said "Uhm, yeah, it's much better than Heineken . . ."

But about that gin and juice thing . . .

Did you know Snoop Dogg has a rap song named Gin & Juice???!!! I would link but it's full of so many profane lyrics I just can't handle it!

Evidently it's supposed to be his favorite drink.

The question is which juice? Which juice does Snoop prefer?

Realistically gin goes with just about any juice!

I picked this stuff up for $.99 the other day! How could I leave it in the store at that price? Seriously, only ONE per customer! Have I been sucked into something here?

My hubby and I like grapefruit and grapefruit juice but this one was a little too sweet for us.

What to do? What to do?

I tried it in a margarita . . . fail.

As I gazed at the liquor shelf I saw my gin and thought.

Hmm, gin and juice?

Gin goes with orange juice, cranberry juice, pineapple juice, lemons, limes, and regular grapefruit juice! Why not try it with some Ruby Red Cocktail juice?

One glass.

A little ice and a little of this gin. It's a cheaper gin with very strong aromatics in it. I wasn't going to risk the Hendrick's on an experiment. Besides, I thought the strong flavors might be needed to climb above the sweet bitterness of the grapefruit juice cocktail.

Two tablespoons will do.

The juice goes in next!

A little sprig of mint and it was perfect! The drink is sweet of course. Most canned juices are! What I like is the tingly sourness of the citrus. The bitterness is beautiful. Grapefruit has slight bitter notes already-it makes it different from oranges and lemons with their straight on sour flavor. The Gordon's gin tastes and smells of a juniper bush! The peppermint leaf adds an extra bit of bite with bitter minty aromas!

Pure refreshing deliciousness. It not only looks like summer, it tastes like summer!