Gin is a cabaret, old chum

One of the last things I remember doing just before lockdown was a trip to the launch of Hendrick’s Lunar Gin with David T. Smith. This expression was more spicily floral than regular Hendrick’s and apparently had lavender essential oil in it. More recently, Mr Smith passed me the remains of a bottle of Hendrick’s latest offering, the Grand Cabaret Gin.

As usual they aren’t very specific about what goes into it, though they call it “an indulgent creation infused with a sensuous cabaret of decadent stone fruit flavours and shimmies of sweet aromatic herbs. Inspired by a 17th-century fruity French experiment, where distilling mounds of stone fruit unexpectedly yielded a truly tasty potion sparked the imagination of our master distiller, Lesley Gracie, to experiment with that same sense of poetic extravagance.”

On the nose it is certainly fruity, though after pondering it a while I conclude that the fruit it most reminds me of is raspberries (which aren’t stone fruit, so who knows where that comes from), with a solid orangey citrus note too. On the palate it’s a bit sickly, but with a herbal dryness that holds these tendencies back a little. It’s certainly a gin underneath, but the fruitiness dominates.

Adding tonic seems to bring out the cucumber for which Hendrick’s is famous, plus something brambly. As G&Ts go it’s got quite a sherbet vibe to it. I try a Dry Martini using Belsazar Dry: this brings out a slight caramel note, but overall it’s not a match made in heaven. The dry, herbal quality of the vermouth actually seems to quarrel with the juicy-fruit character of the gin.

With this in mind, I try an Aviation (a proper one, made with both maraschino and crème de violette), wondering if the florality of that cocktail would work well with the gin. It certainly doesn’t not work, though surprisingly the gin slightly gets lost. Perhaps its defining character is being masked.

I usually try new gins in a Negroni too, though I suspected that the muscle of the vermouth and Campari would whup the gin good and proper. But in fact the raspberry note rises clear above the bitter-sweet melée, adding a distinct and wholly harmonious layer. This is without doubt the stand-out serve for the gin of the ones I tried. I makes a distinctly summery drink (and I say this having tried it in late January) and, now that it is quite summery here in the UK, one that I can heartily recommend you try.

Fit for a king: Buckingham Palace gins

We were at the King’s Gallery in London to look at the exhibition about Georgian fashion, and as we drifted out we were inexorably steered towards the gift shop, where I was interested to see they sold gin. The gallery is actually part of Buckingham Palace and the Buckingham Palace Dry Gin they had on offer uses 12 botanicals gathered from the gardens there, including lemon verbena, hawthorn berries and mulberry leaves.

Priced at a fairly stiff £40, the gin comes in a handsome fluted bottle with a rather understated label that might almost look laser-printed if it weren’t for the gold foil decorative border. Other than the three botanicals mentioned above, I can’t find any other details about what goes into it, but as soon as you open the bottle you get a joyous hit of juniper and citrus. This remains strong in the glass, with the mentholly juniper dominating, with a hint of candied violets and a sharp aromatic like lemon balm or lemon thyme (perhaps the lemon verbena), plus something earthy—maybe from angelica or orris.

On the palate those high, bright notes remain, but on a base that is warm and full, almost chocolatey. Perhaps it’s the contrast with the brisk nose, but the liquid gives a sense of smoothness and sweetness on the tongue, almost like icing sugar, although there is a slight bitterness on the finish. In a gin and tonic it is cool and sophisticated, with a traditional juniper and citrus profile augmented by a hint of cucumber. It’s still warm and smooth compared to some gins but with the bright, aromatic lift and a G&T is surely all about.

In a Dry Martini it has a classic profile, but that bitter finish is noticeable. I’m using Belsazar Dry vermouth which adds a note of vanilla, but the juniper and citrus of the gin cut through clearly. In a Negroni its presence is quiet: it benefits from upping the proportion of gin in the mix. Overall, I suspect the makers reckoned their target market would be mostly drinking it with tonic, and deployed in this way it works well. 

Overall, I rather like Buckingham Palace Dry Gin. It is very classic in style, but with some sophisticated flourishes. Which I suppose is what you would expect from the King’s gin.

While at the palace I noticed that they sold another gin, called Buckingham Palace Coronation Gin. Inevitably curiosity got the better of me and I decided to try this one too—fortunately they were selling it on Amazon, so I didn’t have to go back to Buck House to get some. Interestingly, although this also comes in a fluted bottle, it is a different design, with a larger number of narrower ridges. I would have thought there would be an economy of scale if they’d just used the same bottle with a different label…

The nose of Coronation Gin is immediately warmer, with less of the aromatic high notes of juniper and lemon, and more lower notes, reminiscent of rose, honey and cinnamon. On the palate it has the same initial smoothness but with more of a honeyed mouthfeel, and without the herbaceous, resinous high notes of the Buckingham Palace gin. 

With tonic water, it makes a darker G&T with an interesting whiff of toffee-mint on the nose. On the palate this is continued: it’s like a dark cupboard filled with toffee mints, candied geraniums, damson jam and marmalade. It’s less of a sharpener that a G&T made with the first gin—perhaps more of a late-night contemplative gin (just like Hendrick’s Lunar Gin, but without the added essential oils). 

I try a Martini made with the Coronation gin. (With both these gins I started with a ratio of 4:1 but, feeling that the vermouth dominated a bit too much, moved to 6:1.) While the nose is more about the midrange, the palate is savoury, almost salty, but with a somewhat candied finish. There is an odd hint of banana. 

Given the gin’s warm, spicy approach, I suspected it might work well in a Negroni, and it does, in the sense that it sits harmoniously with the vermouth and Campari. But to a certain extent it is lurking in the background rather than making firm friends.

As you can probably tell, I preferred the Buckingham Palace gin to the more spicy Coronation number. The former’s classic profile makes it eminently usable, but it has sophisticated nuances that give it certain class as well. Is it worth £40 a bottle? No, probably not, so I won’t be making it my go-to. But if money were no object, it would have many of the qualities you’d look for in a house gin. Particularly a house like Buckingham Palace.

Ancient Egyptian Cocktails at the Bloomsbury Club

Let the mystical pyramid choose your cocktail

To Bloomsbury, for the launch of a new cocktail menu at the Bloomsbury Club, in the bowels of the Bloomsbury Hotel—thanks to Megan and Katie from Cru for the invite. We struggled to find the place at first, not realising that the hotel had two cocktail bars, the other being the scintillating Coral Room, to which we’d been before. Such extravagance.

I’ve come across some pretty elaborate cocktails before—such as ones that are served under a glass dome filled with smoke, or one that came in a flask inside a hollowed-out Bible—but this whole menu is pretty high-concept even by these standards. It’s based around Ancient Egypt, on the grounds of the connection between the Bloomsbury Group of artists and the 1922 discovery by Howard Carter of Tutankhamun’s tomb. If you look it up, the connection is actually pretty tenuous, but it was all going on at around the same time. 

What greets you under the pyramid's lid

Each cocktail is named after an Egyptian hieroglyph. Which sounds like a good idea, until you trying asking for them by name in a noisy bar environment. Bellow at the waiter that you’d like a Hu, an Ib and a Ka, and you can’t help feeling that you sound like you’ve already had too many. According to the menu (a detailed booklet that is apparently available for sale, and which naturally I stole), each cocktail actually tries to embody the essence of the hieroglyph in its flavours. I told you it was high-concept.

It gets better. The menu insists that, inspired by the symbols inscribed on sarcophagi, the Bloomsbury Group adopted Ancient Egyptian mystical philosophies, in an attempt to glean universal human truths and come to know The Self. One part of this is the act of divination: although the menu doesn’t go so far as to say the Bloomsbury Group partook of this, the bar does give you, the customer, a chance to have a go. At the beginning of your evening you are presented with a pyramid (mixed media, mostly printed cardboard). Lift the lid and you find a central chamber containing a pendulum. You then allow the pendulum to swing over the top and slowly lower it until it touches one of the “tombs” surrounding the chamber. Lift the lid of this sarcophagus and your family will be cursed for a thousand generations. Only joking. What you actually find under the lid is the name of the cocktail you should order.

In the menu, there is a paragraph under each cocktail telling you what your cocktail choice reveals. Given that your “choice” has been made for you, at random, I guess it’s not revealing what it means that you chose it, but what it means that the gods chose it for you. For example, if you end up with the cocktail named after the god Nefertum, it means the god is calling you to “cast off your neuroses and find wonder in innocent things” (which enough of pretty much any kind of alcohol will do, I guess). If it is divined that you should chug a Meri, it means that “you have been too wrapped up in yourself lately. Meri is here to drag you outside and connect you with the wider world.” (So it’s Meri dragging you outside, not the bouncer—remember that.) “Plant flowers, savour the seasons, get muddy. Breathe energy into your relationships, particularly family. Discover unity everywhere.” (Slurring, “You’re my best mate, you are,” is a start, I presume.) So for an average price of £17, you’re getting therapy as well as a glass of booze, which is pretty good value for London.

I’ll be honest that after the first drink we fell to making our own choices, based on the ingredients listed in the menu. But here we realised that the process was not much different from allowing a pendulum to choose your drink for you, as the description is not much of a guide to what you get. For example, the Scotch-based Kheper includes double cream, yet it is completely clear. We mentioned to the waitress that it looked as if they’d forgotten to include the cream, but she explained it was “clarified cream”. (Can you clarify double cream?) Likewise the Meri contains “honey lassi”—yoghurt, right?—yet is not only clear but colourless too, which is weird as it has Eagle Rare 10-year-old bourbon in it. The Ib contains “saffron custard”, which makes you think it’s going to be like a Snowball, yet it too is clear.  (We struggled to detect either custard or saffron.) Meanwhile, the Champagne-based Manu really does taste like a classy Snowball, dominated by vanilla. (The ingredient is “vanilla salep”—I looked it up and a salep is an Ottoman drink made with flour from the orchid bulb.)

A Manu in the tall glass and a Se Shen with the rose petal

So the cocktail descriptions keep you guessing. But are they nice? Our group of four managed to taste all 12 cocktails on the menu, and in the first instance I would say that it helps if you have a sweet tooth. The Pyramid of Mars declared that Mrs H. should have the Kheper, but even for her it was too sickly to finish, dominated by golden syrup, though not without interest from the Drambuie, carraway, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg also included (the carraway being the most noticeable for me). The gods assigned me the Nefertum, which was sweet too, presumably from the orgeat almond syrup, but balanced by acidity from persimmon, physalis and grapefruit. The base was 11-year-old Santiago de Cuba rum, which came through nicely.

The Meri, with its bourbon joined by cacao, crème de menthe, Branca Menta and honey lassi, sounds like it’s going to be a chocolately Old Fashioned, but, in addition to being colourless, it’s dominated by the mint (crème de menthe mint, not fresh mint), and the bourbon is reduced to a subtle woody ambience. Meanwhile the Ib, made with Chardonnay grape skin vodka, crème de peche, Galliano, saffron custard and peach and jasmine soda—which the menu itself describes as rich and creamy—turns out to be long, floral and refreshing, and was a firm favourite in our group. The Champagne in the Manu (which is slightly more expensive at £25) is clearly present, being the first thing that hits your nose, and its dryness offsets the sweeter elements. But, as I say, it’s vanilla that dominates, and one struggles to detect the tantalising “fig Sauternes” listed in the menu.

But the drinks are by no means all cloying. The Ir Ma’at, made from vodka, Italicus Rosalino di Bergamotto, dry vermouth and yuzu sake, is sharply bitter and aromatic. My two favourites were both pretty punchy: the Ka contains mezcal, green coffee beans, pineapple, lime and “coconut and rosemary agave”, and I would not have guessed that coffee and rosemary would go together so well. And the text for the Wadget warns that “A powerful force is about to surge up in you,” and they are not wrong about this spicy combination of tequila, rosé vermouth, strawberry, cacao, thyme and chilli salt.

Overall, a hell of lot of effort and thought has gone into this menu. Perhaps they’ve overthought it with the mystical pyramids, but they certainly don’t do any harm—and, as I say, the randomness of the drink selection isn’t much different from the surprise you might get if you try and choose a drink based on the way it reads on the page. If your ideal cocktail is a Dry Martini, then you may find some of these too sugary by three-quarters, but overall the menu has bitter and aromatic concoctions too. It’s just a question of guessing which ones they might be.