Gin-in-a-tin gets exotic

Over the years I’ve come across various attempts at premixed cocktails. The sticking point is usually that some ingredients like lemon juice need to be preserved in some way—the Coppa ones clearly had some sort of preservative and some very synthetic-tasting ingredients, while the KÖLD range came in foil pouches that you partially freeze before opening, though I’m guessing the foil also meant you could pasteurise the pouch after sealing, meaning it should stay uncorrupted until the pouch is opened. I don’t know if they do do this, but you run the risk of altering flavours through this “cooking” process. (I think that the Funkin fruit juice pouches are preserved this way—their lime and lemon juice certainly tastes rather cooked.) Both these ranges were heavy on fruit, or at least on fruity flavours.

The only successful range I’ve encountered is Master of Malt’s Handmade Cocktail Company range, which are proper grown-up cocktails. They get round the preservation problem by only making classic recipes that consist mostly of spirits, bitters, etc. Moreover they maintain the high alcoholic strength so that less stable ingredients, like vermouth, are effectively preserved by the alcohol.

Now That Boutique-y Gin Company have launched their own range of “cocktails in a can”, using some of their exotic spirits. This should bode well, as their spirits are generally pretty poised and thoughtfully constructed, even when they contain some whacky flavourings.

The first thing to note about these cocktails is that they are not really cocktails—they are really spirits with mixers. The second thing to note about them is that, like the Coppa and KÖLD ranges, as well as the M&S samples I tried, they are remarkably low in alcohol. I’m assuming that this is to control duty and therefore price—probably because, as with Coppa, there was no getting away from the fact that the marketplace you’re in contains things like Bacardi Breezers and other alcopops. If, like me, you tend to mix two parts tonic to one part gin, you end up with a drink about 13.5% ABV (akin to a beefy wine). The Boutique-y range are around 5% (lager strength), meaning that the spirits must have been pretty heavily diluted.

Moonshot Gin with Citrus Tonic
The Big Idea with Moonshot Gin is that the botanicals (all of them, apparently) have been sent into near-space and back. This subjects them to very low temperature and pressure, though no one seems to be suggesting that this will have had a known effect on the flavour. Ironically they are then vacuum-distilled (so mimicking the low pressure they have just endured). Apparently they throw some moon rock into the vat, but effectively this is just gin.

And you can certainly tell that there is gin in this premix (the ABV is higher here than in the others, at 7.2%). But it’s dominated by a distinctly synthetic-tasting lime flavour, presumably coming from the tonic.

Yuzu Gin Collins with Jasmine Tonic
Given that this is all about the Japanese citrus fruit the yuzu, I was surprised that the citrus flavour here is less in-your-face and more natural-seeming than in the previous mix. But you don’t get much sense of gin—given the ABV of 5.2% it must have been diluted by a good 8:1. You really just get a sense that you are drinking lemonade.

Pineapple Gin Mule
This is the serve that we tried in June, when TBGC were pushing its spit-roasted pineapple gin in time for International Pineapple Day. However, this is not the same drink as the one I made at home. It’s not too bad, and you can certainly taste pineapple, but you can’t really taste the gin itself. It also doesn’t have much body; you mostly have a sense of drinking sweet, fizzy water. Even the gingeriness of the ginger beer seems lost (and you would expect that if they had skimped on the gin then this should be more prominent by comparison). I note that it is not actually the same recipe as the one we tried at home, as they seem to have included pineapple juice—presumably you wouldn’t otherwise get any pineapple at all, given the low gin content.*

Cherry Gin Cola
It’s recognisably cola, with a strong vanilla hit reaching you first, plus an obvious cherry flavour, though I’m not sure I would guess there was any gin in it. As with the pineapple, this has actual cherry juice in it, which may be a way of getting some cherry flavour to make up for the lack of gin in the blend (or it may be a way of describing the gin itself—gin and cherry juice), plus added cardamom and orange blossom. It has a slightly chocolately finish.

Strawberry and Balsamic Gin Fizz
We previously decided that the TBGC Strawberry and Balsamic Gin served with sparkling wine was a thing of great beauty, but sadly this is not that recipe, but a blend of the gin with cream soda, vanilla and orange blossom. There is proper strawberry on the nose, and on the tongue you get vanilla too, as well as orange, but it is still rather synthetic-seeming. Having said that, this is one of the nicer ones from the range and I did finish it (unlike one of the others which ended up going down the sink).

So, are these premixed cocktails? No, despite the “craft cocktails” blazon on the can. Are they good mixed drinks? Hard to say, as I don’t have much of a sweet tooth and almost never drink cola, lemonade, cream soda, etc. You don’t really taste much gin in any of them, but given that they are beer-strength they may make sensible session drinks for a hot summer’s day—my cans even came with a branded cool bag just the right size and shape for half a dozen of them—assuming the cloying sweetness doesn’t send you into a diabetic coma before sundown…

*Here I’m assuming that they literally make these premixes from their gins, though I suppose it’s possible they somehow use some of the individual components in different proportions. It’s also possible that when they list the ingredients as including London Dry Gin and “fresh pineapple juice”, this is actually just a legal way of describing the process by which they make the gin itself—judging by the colour, the pineapple gin has clearly been infused with pineapple post-distillation, so there must be actual pineapple juice in the bottle. The same goes for the cherry gin.

Wilful eccentricities from That Boutique-y Gin Company

The box of samples, exterior. You can see images of finger limes and cucamelons

I don’t normally do “unboxings”, but those giddy types at That Boutique-y Gin Company sent me a set of samples packaged in a way that required a photographic record.

The company is an offshoot of That Boutique-y Whisky Company, in turn descended from Atom Supplies who run Master of Malt. The whisky version has been bottling odds and ends for some years, with a trademark style of busy, cartoonish label, often featuring people involved with the product, and the gin version carries on this tradition. They describe themselves as the world’s first independent gin bottler, releasing small batches of new and experimental gins from various distillers, as well as producing some of their own.

Lid removed, revealing three sample bottles of gin and the three tiny phials

With so many gins on the market, and no let-up in sight to the idea that everyone needs to have their own gin, many new products seek to go somewhere unusual with their botanicals, to stand out from the crowd, often to the extent of describing the end result specifically as tangerine gin, blueberry gin, seaweed gin, what have you. (In fairness, a few of these concepts, such as orange gin, do have a heritage stretching at least back to the early 20th century.) So in order to be truly boutique-y, TBGC have gone out of their way to find some truly odd things to blend into their gins.

Some miniatures from the range, given out at the party earlier this year

Early this year I went to their birthday party where I was confronted by such oddities as a gin made from botanicals that have been shot into space (no, it didn’t seem to affect the flavour) and gin aged in Canadian icewine barrels. The three samples sent to be this time were Finger Lime Gin, Cucamelon Gin and Strawberry & Balsamico Gin. Finger limes are an Australian plant which apparently have a texture like caviar with a lime-like flavour (though apparently not actually related to the citrus genus). Cucamelons are indigenous to Central America and look like small watermelons and taste, it says here, of “lime-dipped cucumbers”. For the final gin they take a gin base, add fresh strawberries as well as strawberry and black pepper distillates, and balsamic vinegar from Modena, aged for 12–25 years in barrels of chestnut, cherry, oak, mulberry, ash and juniper wood.

Each of the gin samples was accompanied by a tiny phial of a key distillate in concentration (60% ABV)—or, in the case of the last one, a phial of the vinegar in question. These have been vacuum distilled from whole finger limes, or whole cucamelons with a bit of liquorice root. However, this does not seem to be an indication that the gins are made by distilling botanicals individually then blending the distillates (as happens with Sacred and Gin Mare), as the notes suggest that for the actual gins all the botanicals are macerated together.

Tasting the gins together there does seem to be a house style, with a rich, smooth, sweet feel: where some traditional gins are dominated by steely juniper high notes, mixing well with tonic, these give the impression they are meant to be approachable neat, easy on the tongue and weighted with woody, floral middle notes.

The Finger Lime Gin has a nose of lime, unsurprisingly, but it’s a soft, sweet, perfumed smell, without the sharpness of a fresh lime. It is plump in the mouth, with a jammy fruit character up front, then some savoury, stemmy flavours coming afterwards. It’s pretty drinkable neat, with only a hint of bitterness on the finish.

In a gin and tonic (with Fever Tree Naturally Light)*, however, the Finger Lime Gin is pretty disappointing, in my opinion. I was expecting a joyous, juicy drink, but the gin lacks the juniper backbone that would traditionally balance the sweet/citrus/bitter contributions of the tonic. It’s a bit too soft and sweet in its own right, and creates a G&T that’s a bit unnerving, almost sickly. (I’m struck by an odd salty finish, not entirely unwelcome, but I’m not sure where that is coming from.)

So I figured it might sit more comfortably in a Martini, but I’m not convinced about that either: again a bit too sweet and not sitting comfortably with the vermouth (Belsazar Dry in this case). So I try another of my standard gin tests, an Aviation, made with woody Luxardo Maraschino, dry Bitter Truth crème de violette and lemon juice. Now, suddenly, it all comes together. And the weird thing is that, as I adjust the amount of gin to get the balance right, this is the first time that I have been particularly aware of the Finger Lime’s juniper content. I can’t entirely explain it, but a Finger Lime Aviation is a very satisfying cocktail.

Next I try a Gimlet—a traditional blend of gin and Rose’s Lime Cordial. I honestly expect it to be a bit of a pointless exercise, since the gin has lime in it anyway, but again I am surprised. For the second time I notice the gin’s juniper aspect, and however the various lime elements are relating to each other, it is a pleasant cocktail overall, with just enough sweetness from the cordial helping to round things out.

The little phial of finger lime distillate is an interesting idea—not that you would have any difficulty spotting the presence of lime in the finished gin blend. At 60% ABV the distillate is drinkable, and offers a sharp blast of fruit/sour/bitter. It’s like biting into a particularly intense kumquat.

By this time I’m running low on the Finger Lime gin, so I turn my attention to the Cucamelon. It has a general family resemblance, being fragranced on the nose and plump and smooth on the tongue, but with an obvious cucumber element that makes it straightaway more savoury. In a Martini it is obviously more ginny, again with the savoury cucumber notes (and cucumber in gin is not novel, thanks to Hendrick’s and Martin Miller’s). But there are complex layers unpeeling here, first a wholly unexpected blackcurrant fruity sweetness, then a woody dry spice like cassia on the finish. And there is juniper too. In a Gimlet and an Aviation it works perfectly well but doesn’t transform like the Finger Lime did—I’m guessing drinks like those are the Finger Lime’s spiritual home, while for me the Cucamelon is more successful in itself and therefore works better in simpler serves.

The cucamelon distillate proves even more fascinating. Yes, there is obviously a bright cucumber element up front (and, oddly, nothing that I would really identify as melon) but there is another wave of flavour, darker, more mid-range—seriously, it’s suggesting orange, rose, banana, artichoke and more—plus a finish of pink peppercorns.

The Strawberry & Balsamico gin has a nose, unsurprisingly, of strawberries. It was never going to be exactly like fresh strawberries (strawberry infusions always end up tasting of stewed or baked fruit, like the strawberry Palmetto moonshine), but this is closer than I had expected. The balsamic note is subtle, but combines with the fruit to suggest coffee. The juniper is clearly present too. On the tongue is has the thick, rich texture of those intense, dark Pedro Ximenez sherries; but, though sweet, it is not tooth-curlingly so.

So what does one do with it? It makes a surprisingly viable G&T but TBGC suggest trying it lengthened with sparkling wine. This does work very well (I tried it with some rosé Champagne, which possibly emphasised the strawberry notes), creating what is effectively a one-stop Champagne-style cocktail, with the fruit element clear—but also again I found myself noticing the juniper character more strikingly in this combination with as much ginniness as you would get from a French 75. It’s a complex, sophisticated combo.

As for the tiny phial of balsamic vinegar? Absolutely delicious. It combines a sweet, delicate approachability with a depth and complexity of flavour that I’ve not previously encountered in a vinegar, balsamic or otherwise. I don’t know how much this stuff costs for a bottle but it’s probably worth it.

So what of the TBGC range in general? They tend to be competently made, though there is something of the dog-on-its-hind-legs about these eccentric botanicals. To my surprise, the one I would be most keen to hang on to is the least versatile, the Strawberry and Balsamic gin—simply because of the cocktail it creates when added to sparkling wine. Of the other two, I probably preferred the cucamelon over the finger lime, but one does get the impression that they dream up odd flavours for the sake of being different. And what’s wrong with that? Every now and then they’re going to come across something that strikes such a chord it could be a future classic.

The TBGC range sells for from £30 (50cl), up to £50 for their Very Old Tom.

* This is a favourite of mine at the moment: it doesn’t have any artificial sweeteners, just less sugar than the regular tonic.

Strawberry & Balsamico Gin with Champagne