Absinthe: putting the "blind" into blind tasting

Your noble experimenters with some of the samples (that's Doubs in the glass)

I first got interested in absinthe a few years ago when I stumbled across Phil Baker’s The Dedalus Book of Absinthe (2001). It’s an excellent book, though a little out of date now—back then we didn’t have so many earnest attempts to recreate the subtleties of “proper” absinthe and Ted Breaux hadn’t won his battle to legalise it in the States. The focus of my gnat-like attention span drifted on to other things and it was only last year, when Ted’s Lucid brand started making headway and others like La Clandestine, Butterfly and La Maison Fontaine began to see if they could rebuild a market in the UK, that I started thinking about it again.

I have written elsewhere about the general history of the Green Fairy but the business of today’s exercise is actually tasting the stuff. I still had a collection of bottles knocking around, and David occasionally gives me strange samples too, so we decided that we should have a big comparative tasting of everything we had to hand.

I should stress that this was not a scientific analysis of everything on the market—it really was just a curious exercise in comparing those that we had: absinthe is bloody expensive so we weren’t planning to buy anything in specifically for this test. In all we blind-tasted 19 samples, ranging from Czech “fauxsinthes” to recently released distilled recreations of pre-ban styles. But there were notable absences: no La Fée, no Lucid, and indeed no La Maison Fontaine. I suppose it was just an attempt to see whether we really could tell the difference between the fancy brands and the knock-off green-dye-and-essence jobs.

It has been observed that attempting to have absinthe blind tastings will always be hampered by the fact that there is so much variety and subjectivity in how the drink is prepared: different manufacturers recommend different degrees of dilution and there is the question of whether to add sugar. But for the sake of this test we did not sweeten any of them and prepared each sample in the same way: 10ml of absinthe to 25ml of water, tasting them mostly from shot glasses for the sake of space and convenience.

The variety of colours is interesting—note the drinks measure being used
as a makeshift tasting vessel

DBS prepared the samples, so he knew which was which, but I was tasting completely blind. Obviously I could see which were green styles and which colourless “bleue” or “blanche” absinthes—plus there were a couple that were actually verging on the blue or indeed bright red.

The absinthes were presented in no particular order, in tranches of four, and we each aimed to find our favourite overall three. There were four bleue samples, which I also ranked within that category.

To see which absinthes were actually included, see my tasting notes below (bearing in mind I didn’t know what anything was when I was tasting it). David actually has a much sweeter tooth than me (even unsugared, some of them felt too sweet for me, although these perceptions can be greatly affected by what you have tasted just before) and our rankings within the tranches differed, but I think we broadly agreed on the overall favourites. Which were:

First: Butterfly
Second: Angelique
Third: Mari Mayans

These are all green styles—and it’s possible I just generally prefer this style—but out of the four bleues our ranking was:

First: Clandestine (2006 batch)
Second: Clandestine (recent batch)
Third: Eichelberger 68
Fourth: La P’tite

In truth I pondered long and hard over whether I preferred sample 11 or sample 12—much to David’s amusement as he knew they were both Clandestine. One was from a bottle acquired very recently and the other was from an open bottle distilled in 2006 (it handily had a batch date on it). Yet we agreed they clearly tasted different. The older one had a more restrained flavour, but which threw up subtleties when you gave it a chance, while the newer one was more in-your-face with the sweet, floral elements that seem characteristic of bleues.*

The biggest surprise must be the presence of Mari Mayans in third place. I was under the impression that it was not a “proper” distilled absinthe, where the botanticals are macerated in the spirit then redistilled, like gin (although the green colour of green absinthes comes from a post-distillation maceration of certain botanicals that don’t distil well). However, their website says that, “It is made from distilling the leaves and stems of hand-picked Artemisia Absinthium (Wormwood) and is then macerated in herbs.” It is “100% natural” and apparently made to the same formula that the distillery has been using since its foundation by Juan Mari Mayans in 1858.

I was also surprised that the 1901 absinthe from Ted Breaux’s Jade range didn’t score higher, though it was sampled in the same tranche as Butterfly which might have overshadowed it. I did think it was quite interesting, though I  wasn’t quite sure about its pungent aroma. Also in that tranche was Eichelberger 68 which did quite well. We categorised it as a bleue though there is a hint of green about it. It was apparently the result of a competition in 2005 to come up with a better quality German absinthe—15 homemade recipes were entered and the winner made into a commercial product.

Also absent from the field, of course, was any genuine pre-ban absinthe! These do come up now and then and it is on the analysis of these that some of the newer ones are based. Perhaps if we do this again some generous Green Fairy can supply us with a dose for comparative purposes…

Tasting notes (all tasted blind):
Tranche A
1. Angelique Very pale, with just a hint of green. Strong louche. Gentle, fresh nose
and rich taste of rubbery anise and caramel. More complex and sappy than no.3.
2. La P’tite A bleue with a buttery, slightly sour nose, and a hint of dark berries. The buttery element carries on to the palate, where there is anise too, though that fatty/floral element—like an over-ripe flower—dominates. DBS is unimpressed: “not really absinthe”.
3. Mari Mayans Solid louche; greener than no.1. Not much nose, though a hint of old varnished wood. Flavour is a shade waxy, but also with a lot of anise. DBS likes this aniseed “punch”.
4. Pernod Less louche. Not much going on; taste is warm and sugary and a bit synthetic.
Best of this tranche: 1 with 3 a close second
Tranche B
5. Dedo A lot of blue in the green colour; light louche. Nose is strong, sweetish and reminiscent of coffee. Aniseed warmth on the taste but a bit thin and bitter.

6. Van Gogh Pale yellow-green and light louche. Not much nose, not much taste apart from a bit of anise; remarkably sweet.
7. Duplais Mid green, good louche. More interesting nose, with something resinous, piney. Seems strong ABV. Taste is more bitter with vegetal elements.
8. Hapsburg Red Bright red, no louche whatsoever. Smells candy-sweet. Palate: clumsy synthetic fruit flavours, recently snuffed candles. Not much aniseed. Just silly.
Best of this tranche: No.7
Tranche C
9. King of Spirits Gold Pale yellow-green, no louche at all. Little smell, though vaguely like a urinal. Very bitter attack but with a sweetish finish. It has a rubbery aromatic element, like a fake pint scent—perhaps this reminds of toilet cleaner, hence the “urinal” reference! Not pleasant at all.
10. Hapsburg Green Bluish-green, virtually no louche. Nose: sweet orange, maybe a hint of parma violets; palate too reminds me of some childhood confectionary. Bit like drinking sweetened cologne. [Note: I am informed by Dale Sklar, the owner of Hapsburg, that the different colours of the product all taste the same, just vary in ABV and colour. Mind you, he also insists that they louche, which clearly they don’t.]
11. La Clandestine (recent batch) Bleue; good louche. Nose: rubbery, buttery, slightly sour. Palate: fresh and meadow-floral, well balanced with just the right degree of sweetness for me. Can’t decide if I would find that butteriness a bit cloying after a while.
12. La Clandestine (2006) Bleue; less louche than 11. Seems less sweet on the palate, a shade more astringent, more restrained but still interesting. Can’t decide if this has less going on than No.11 or just more restrained.
Best of this tranche: toss-up between 11 and 12
Tranche D
13. Eichelberger 68 Essentially a bleu but with a hint of green; good louche. Fresh nose with a citrus element; palate on the bitter side, with a bit of cinnamon.
14. Butterfly Strong louche and darkest green yet (DBS describes it as like “off lime juice”). Warm with rubbery anise and big, fascinating aftertaste—tea, apples, bit of grapefruit.
15. Jade 1901 Pale grey-green; moderate louche. Nose: floral and remarkable pungent, almost gamey. Palate: good balance and interesting subtleties of bracken and twigs.
16. Absinth Original Very pale green with no louche; looks like a glass of soave. Nose: none, apart from a hint of solvent. Palate: mostly just bitterness; very thin.
Best of this tranche: No. 14, followed by 13 then 15
Tranche E
17. Fruko-Schulz Absinth 70% Dark purple-red, no louche. Smells of nothing. Tastes of watery toothpaste.
18. Sebor Pale mid-green, no louche. Nose: piney; not bad but a bit artificial and sweet. Palate: bitter-sweet, some dusty herbs.
19. Doubs Vivid green, mild louche. Nose: cinnamon, menthol, pine. Palate: very menthol, like Vick’s VapoRub. Bold but artificial, possibly the most artificial-seeming yet.
Best of this tranche: 19 (best of a bad batch)

* I subsequently mentioned this to Alan Moss of La Clandestine. This is his reply: “I asked Claude-Alain [who distils it] about the difference between four-year-old Clandestine and one that was much younger. He's not surprised. In his view, an older blanche would typically taste "softer," maybe more rounded in the mouth (a bit like our wine-based Clandestine). We've always said that our absinthes, being completely natural and the product of the terroir, can also vary from year to year (and on a lesser scale from batch to batch).”

It's a tough game, this blogging, but someone has to do it

What ales thee, Ginger?

DBS explains the importance of our mission

Everything seems a bit ginger at the moment. Last week we were at a launch of Crabbie’s new range—following the success of their alcoholic ginger beer they have now followed this up with a cloudy, non-alcoholic one, plus a diet version, a chilli-kick version, plus a “twist of orange” version—which was my favourite until DBS pointed out that its taste was reminiscent of Fanta, after which I couldn’t get the association out of my mouth. They even let us taste their new blended whisky, presumably intended to mix with their soft drinks, a product so hush-hush they wouldn’t let us photograph the bottle.

The rep did say she thought that ginger seemed to be the flavour du jour, so the Institute was clearly on trend when, inspired by the success of our group test of tonic waters in November, we held a ginger ale tasting on 17th January. We were at Graphic once more, under the banner of the Juniper Society, and we had 28 souls blind-tasting 11 ginger ales—ten readily available in shops plus a mysterious wild-card eleventh. Most people chugged them one after another but I was indulged with my own set of 11 glasses—DBS knows I like to be able to return to any sample at will to make close comparisons.

I confess I don’t really drink ginger ale as a rule (in fact, tonic water aside, I don’t really drink soft drinks) so I had less of a vested interest this time, nor any preconceptions or yardsticks. It was simply a question of which of the drinks tasted the nicest. I’ll put my tasting notes at the bottom but, when obliged to give my top three, I personally rated Canada Dry Diet at the top, followed by Britvic and the Mystery Ginger Ale in third place. This is admittedly odd, given that the diet versions overall didn’t fare that well. Looking at my notes I see that I found this one “less sickly” that the others, albeit on the watery side—so perhaps I just preferred it because it tasted of less! Oddly there were three products which, to me, had a noticeable taste of sesame—Sainsbury’s, Tesco Diet and, to a slightly lesser extent, Canada Dry. Others picked up on this when I pointed it out. I’d be curious to know what ingredient was responsible for this.

So, when we compiled the votes of all 28 people, who won?

GOLD MEDAL
Mystery Ginger Ale

SILVER MEDAL
Sainsbury's

BRONZE MEDAL
Waitrose

Note the fizzy, cloudy nature of the Mystery Ginger Ale

Yes, it was a good day for the supermarket brands. But what was the Ginger Ale With No Name? It turned out to be homemade by David. Having previously made a tonic syrup (sugar syrup with quinine and citric acid) and a bitter lemon syrup (the same plus lemon juice, zest and pith), he simply infused fresh ginger into some of the latter then added soda water. The result is arguably too cloudy and a bit too gingery to be considered ginger ale per se (is it a ginger beer instead? See box above), but it beat the commercial products hands down.

Coming soon: ginger beers and alcoholic ginger beers…

My tasting notes (tasted blind):
Fevertree Ginger and lime aroma; perhaps smells more like ginger beer than ginger ale. Palate a bit thin but also sickly. Surprisingly unfizzy. Smells nicer than it tastes.
Tesco Fizzier than Fevertree. Much less ginger on the nose and more lime, plus hints of grapes and nail varnish remover. Still a bit sickly with an Opal Fruit aftertaste.
Canada Dry Diet Pinkish colour and a grapefruit nose. Palate is less cloying; somehow watery, which means it seems easier to drink on its own.
Sainsbury’s Whiff of industrial solvent on the nose but with an odd dry hint of oats or halva/tahini. This sesame element continues on the palate.
Tesco Diet Not dissimilar to the Sainsbury’s but with quite a fierce pepperiness on the finish and on the vapour, which made me cough. A slick sweetness I don’t like, though the actual taste is surprisingly thin. Hint of rose water, plus that odd sesame thing.
Britvic Rather neutral, which might be a good thing if you’re looking for a serviceable mixer. No corners. Dry nose.
Carter’s Hugely fruity nose but a lightish palate. Hint of chilli. Others observed a floral nose, in a Fairy Liquid sort of way.
Waitrose Initial off-note which dissipates leaving a neutral, solid profile.
Canada Dry That sesame thing again. Good initial ginger and lime smell with a peppery hint, though the actual palate is a bit synthetic, like toilet cleaner.
Baron's Ginseng Ginger Ale Ridiculous cherry-bomb nose and flavour. “Like a tuck shop,” someone said. Very sweet and synthetic. Like synthetic strawberries.
Mystery Ginger Ale Is this homemade? Cloudy and with an immense head of foam like none of the others. Has an intriguing savoury quality—smells like Cuppasoup or vegetable bouillon powder. Tomato? Pepper kick on the tongue but also a butteriness. Quite complex and lingering. Would actually have rated it higher if it weren’t for the disconcerting buttery element.

The full flight of 11 with my gibberish tasting notes

Budget Gin & Tonic

THE BUDGET GIN AND TONIC

In the world of drinks there is decadence aplenty; maybe you fancy a £500 dram of whisky or a goblet of wine with the world's largest black pearl dissolved in it? But what about the other end of the spectrum? Can you get a quality drinks for pennies in the pound?

A staple favourite of our readers is the Gin & Tonic and, with £45-a-bottle gins and small bottles of tonic costing upto £2.50, the cost of a single double-measure serving of this beverage could quickly creep to over £4.55—and that's from the comfort of your own home, acting as your own bartender!

So I wondered, was it possible to find a very respectable (and tasty) gin and tonic for less than £1 (that's one hundred new pence). Saving the theatrics, the answer was "Yes".

Here is the solution:

The Gin

Oliver Cromwell London Dry Gin (Original)—£10.99 for one litre from Aldi. (100ml = £1.09)

Bottled at 37.5%, it's a good gin and great value for money. On its own it's OK but when mixed with tonic it's a gin that competes with the best of them.

The Tonic

Waitrose Regular—£0.49 per litre (or £2.09 for a six-pack of 250ml cans). (Sometimes this is available in a 3 for 2 deal, giving you even more savings.)

This has a good balance of sweetness and bitterness, and no overbearing artificial taste like many.

So the combination: a good example of a gin and tonic, you have juniper, you have a citrus you have a bitter edge and it is very refreshing. For 60p it is a bargain and you wouldn't feel like you were one step away from the bath-tub gin or cutting your Gordon's Gin by adding more water to make it go further.

Gin Safari 2: Bitter and Twisted

Just some of the tonic drinks we found in Wenty Tropical Foods

I recently reported on our expedition to darkest Forest Gate in search of two African gins. But what started it all was our curiosity about some African bitters we’d been told were rather tasty. During our safari we did manage to find some, plus some Caribbean tonics and soft drinks that were new to us—including the eye-catching Bedroom Bully which, like a number of tonics, sells itself mainly on a claim to boost male, erm, stamina.

Back at the lab DBS couldn’t wait to crack open the Bedroom Bully. In appearance it is brown and cloudy, like a glass of flat Coke from which someone has clumsily swigged after eating crackers. Its smell is vegetal, reminiscent of dock leaves and damp roots, with hints of orange, gravy granules and cheesy feet. After all this the flavour is unexpectedly thin, but with a pronounced aftertaste of rusty metal. David declines to finish it.

Herb Afrik Gin Bitters is 40% ABV and is sold in 70cl bottles as well as the smaller flask we purchased, intended to be drunk neat as well as mixed with gin, beer or soft drinks. The term “gin bitters” is derived from the introduction of European botanically flavoured alcohols but the drink has nothing in common with gin. In fact it doesn’t go into detail about what is in it but the website observes that, “The ingredients are carefully selected for their potency, and other beneficial properties. It is appreciated for its pleasant taste and soothing effect while it answers the growing need of consumers for a drink with potent and beneficial herbal ingredients.” So clearly it is intended to have some effect, but they don’t say what. (It’s interesting how no one sells gin on its medicinal properties any more…). Unless it is all just a euphemism for a cheap way to get drunk. It’s a rusty brown colour and the predominant smell and taste is ginger. It fact it reminds me of one of those Dutch speculoos spiced biscuits. Mixing it with Castle Bridge gin from the same distillers improves it, though frankly the gin is better without the bitters.

Alomo bitters is the other one recommended by Dr Leizaola. Made by Kasapreko in Ghana, it is bottled at 42% and again does not detail the “carefully chosen plant extracts” going into it, but asserts that it is “the best and most reliable restorative provided by nature” and “promotes vitality especially in Men”. It smells of boot polish and is very bitter on the palate. To me it tastes vaguely of mussels. Adding tonic water makes everything taste worse.

Sea Moss is a type of seaweed that is considered health-giving in the Caribbean, once again having alleged aphrodisiac and potency-boosting properties. Caribbean Flavours Sea Moss and Peanut sounded intriguing enough and smells enticingly of coconut and Baileys—in fact there is no coconut or alcohol in it, although there is milk. It actually tastes a bit like Baileys too but is disturbingly gloopy from the seaweed and has an unpleasant metallic aftertaste. Adding rum improves it but I couldn’t stomach much.

I also bought a can of straightforward sea moss drink (flavoured with vanilla). Boy is this stuff disturbing: it has the look and texture of snot (see photo). It is stomach-turningly repulsive and I could only manage a small sip. I was even scared to pour it down the sink in case it set in the pipes.

Not a glass of mucus but a sea moss beverage

Finally we cracked open a bottle of Solo Grape Soda, a Trinidadian beverage. I think David was attracted by the label, which is splendid and looks like it was designed in the 1930s. It has a violently synthetic colour and an astonishingly foul odour—we eventually agreed that it smells like someone has vomited in a Chinese supermarket. The taste is primarily sugar and water but that stench predominates.

DBS had also bought some other curios, such as “Sof Drink Kola Champagne”, but we’d had enough fun for now and needed a stiff G&T to cleanse our palates before any permanent damage was done.

I have to say that if Herb Afrik and Alomo were the best bitters that Dr Leizola encountered (and there were very many on display in his exhibition) then I think I’ll sit tight with Angostura for a bit.

Botanicals—the more the merrier?

A mixological magpie, DBS is forever accumulating samples. Every time I see him he presents me with small bottles and phials, to the extent that Mrs H. has made me remove the collection of miniatures that was spilling off the booze shelf. David, meanwhile, was wanting some of the bottles back, so I realised it was time I actually drank some.

One of the latest samples he gave me is of a gin called The Botanist that is made on the island of Islay (in fact is the only gin made on the island, as they proudly point out) by the Bruichladdich whisky distillery. This business of making gin as a sideline seems increasingly common: on holiday in Wales once I got talking to a shop owner about a Welsh gin he was selling (must have been Penderyn’s Brecon gin). He told me it was really only being produced as a quick source of ready cash (DBS’s oaked experiment aside, gin doesn’t need to be matured) to fund the real project which was whisky—a previous incarnation of the company having gone bust while waiting for the product to mature. I don’t know if Bruichladdich’s motivation is the same or whether it’s simply that gin is now so fashionable that anyone with anything resembling a still is bashing out a gin to cash in. (While mooching around Gerry’s in Soho the other day we got to sample two new gins made by the brewer Adnams; initial tastes were very promising and I hope to report further shortly.)

In keeping with Bruichladdich’s brand image of sophisticated independence The Botanist augments nine conventional botanicals with no fewer than 22 others all from Islay. In fact it may well be that every single plant growing on the island has been stuffed into the still to see what it all tastes like. (See the full list at the bottom.) These have apparently been “hand-picked” from the wild by the “expert foraging team* from the windswept hills, peat bogs and Atlantic shores” of the island. These are presumably macerated in the spirit before distillation in Ugly Betty, their experimental Lomond** pot still, which runs at a lower pressure than normal and takes three times longer to distil a batch than their whisky stills do. The gin is bottled at 46% ABV and the 2010 offering is limited to just 15,000 bottles.

Ugly Betty is installed

Presumably to assuage traditionalists, Bruichladdich point out that this gin actually has a “historical relevance”. Before the days of legitimate whisky, cask-aged into smooth complexity, clandestine distillers would consume their spirit young and clear, and would attempt to improve the rough flavour by bunging hillside plants into it. One such was juniper, which grows wild on the island. Therefore, they assert, the original whisky, as it were, may well have been more like gin.

This is all as may be, but what does it taste like? The Botanist may have 22 wild, whole-earth, dew-picked Islay botanicals in it, but it also has nine bog-standard ones—they list juniper, cassia bark, coriander seed and orris powder—and it is these that dominate. So first and foremost it tastes like gin. I’m assuming there is orange peel in the mix too, because to me there is a strong element of this. I also get the feeling there is some kind of allium in there, though I may be confusing it with something like Meadowsweet, which I think has a Parsley-like gentle pungency to it. A Botanist Martini has a dry perfume and a prominent herbal notes, with a hint of crystallised violets. Tasting it in a G&T I again get orange and savoury spice, plus berries and mint (not surprising as there are three kinds of mint in the mix, and indeed elderberry).

The Botanist is a complex gin. I don’t think I can taste all 31 botanicals, but who says you have to? It’s an approachable gin that works in all the conventional recipes but rewards greater study. It wouldn’t surprise me if different botanicals popped up as you experimented with combining the gin with other mixers or cocktail ingredients—but alas my tantalising phial is empty.

The Botanist's island botanicals:

White Birch, Camomile, Creeping Thistle, Lady’s Bedstraw, Elderberry, Gorse, Common Heather, Common Hawthorn, Lemon balm, Meadowsweet, Foxtail Mint, Peppermint, Water Mint, Common Wormwood, Grande Wormwood, Red Clover, White Clover, Sweet Cicely, Bog Myrtle, Tansy, Common Thyme, Wood Sage.

* I quite like the idea of being an “expert forager”: I can picture it on my business card. Plus of course the Hollywood movie, where a crack team of the world’s top foragers is assembled, grizzled veterans brought out of retirement for “one last job”, each with their own special skills, personal mythologies and individual hang-ups (“I thought I made myself clear!” I snarl into our mysterious client’s face, “I don’t touch meadowsweet!”).

** Or Lomand, depending on which press release you read. A Lomand still is a cross between a Coffey and a pot still, with removable neck sections and adjustable plates to alter the weight of the spirit that emerges. Only one has ever been built, in 1956 at the Dumbarton distillery, and it is this one, refurbished, that now squats at Bruichladdich.

Some of the samples DBS has recent bestowed: Mozart dry chocolate liqueur, homemade apple gin
crème de mure, Giffard brown crème de cacao and Giffard white crème de cacao

Oaked gin: tasting notes after two days

Mr Bridgman-Smith's oaked gin

DBS recently pressed a small phial of yellow liquid on me and demanded I tasted it at once. Fortunately it wasn’t a urine sample but some of his experimental oak-aged gin (see post below).

I think he said that the sample had been drawn after just 36 hours: I was impressed by how much colour had been taken on already, but I guess chipped wood does have a very high surface area.

The nose was clearly gin, but also had a smoky, caramel/burnt sugar element and a hint of petrol—subtle but clearly there. On the palate this is carried across: a touch of petrol oiliness which augments the dry, steely juniper rather well. Again a whiff of smoke but also a definite butteriness, reminiscent of big, butterfat/vanilla oaked New World white wines.

I confess I am aware of the shortcomings of the gin itself, which seems rather rough and fierce. I gather it’s Aldi own-label Oliver Cromwell gin. But David tells me that he too recognises this issue and is working on a second batch that uses Sipsmith gin. Bring it on, I say. Without doubt this experiment is worthwhile—my overall impression is that the warm characteristic of the oak should fruitfully augment the dry edge of gin and make rather a fascinating drink.

Gin safari!

The precious map that led us to our prize

Of course we’d all heard the rumours. But it wasn’t until an old wino staggered into the IAE offices and inconveniently expired in the wingback in reception that we realised it might be true: clutched in his right hand (after we opened his fingers with a bolt-cutter) was a map—torn and charred but unmistakeable.

In our report on the recent exhibition about bitters we mentioned that the curator Ricardo Leizaola regarded Herb Afrik and Alomo Bitters as the tastiest examples of all the “world bitters” he encountered. I had noticed that the makers of Herb Afrik, the Ghanaian distillery GIHOC, also produced three gins: Castle Bridge, Lawyer (with a label that is surely a close reference to Gordon’s Export) and Betsuo. Curious, I’d tried contacting them but had failed to elicit a response.

Meanwhile DBS had become interested in a Ugandan gin called Uganda Waragi. So when our vagrant friend—who turned out to be a burnt-out ex-bartender famous for his trips into the Interior to source rare ingredients, and widely regarded as insane after the tragedy with his Puffer Fish and Durian Fruit Daquiri—snuffed it holding a map with a big “X” marking the fabled land of Forest Gate, we knew it was a sign. Saddling the club mule (startled at being asked to leave the stables for the first time in 15 years) we loaded up with iron rations of foie gras and Sauternes and headed up country.

Forest Gate turns out to be a hive of multicultural trading. David had actually established that one shop, Pascheal Exotics, did stock Uganda Waragi and had reserved a few bottles. But on the way there and back we ducked into various trading establishments looking for the bitters—when we eventually found some the store also sold Castle Bridge. “All the way from Ghana,” the shopkeeper said with a mixture of pride and wistfulness. “It’s lovely.” My curiosity was well and truly piqued: what could be so different about this gin that it was worth importing to a small shop in north-west London? Yet the retail price of £12 for Castle Bridge and £15 for Waragi was cheap enough to make you wonder just how rough this was going to be, when bottles of domestically-produced Gordon’s and Beefeater sell for £14–15.

Interestingly Uganda Waragi also comes in soft plastic sachets, each a couple of double measures. It has a strangely utilitarian feel, as if it had come from a UN aid parcel, and there is something sinister about a delivery method that of course must be drunk all in one go. I’m told a lot of drinks are sold this way in Africa, though some campaigners are trying to get the format banned.

Back at the Institute we dashed to the lab without even brushing the trail dust from our topees, eager to put the drinks through their paces. Castle Bridge is bottled at 40% ABV and has a very juniper-led nose, almost a bit ham-fisted in its unsubtlety. Neat the palate is light and astringent. I always think of Beefeater as rather ethereal and straight-backed but compared to Castle Bridge it seems fat, spicy and complex. SW4 is a juniper-led brand specifically intended to be quintessentially ginny but again, compared to Castle Bridge’s pencil-lead juniper fixation, SW4’s sweet orange notes are emphasised. Mind you Castle Bridge is a perfectly creditable gin. It’s more palatable than Hogarth and about the same price, while DBS assures me it’s considerably pleasanter than Richmond, his current benchmark for repulsiveness.

The name and the styling are clearly trying to evoke an Old World European sophistication and the year “1792” is emblazoned across the top label, though the significance of this date is never mentioned. It clearly calls itself a “London Dry Gin” though I wonder whether it really fulfils the EU requirements. Neither the bottle nor the website give anything away about the botanicals* but what originally roused my curiosity was the fact that it is made from molasses neutral spirit. This sounded rather exotic, but in fact sugar beet molasses turns out to be the base for quite a bit of mass-market gin and about a third of European vodka production.

I dig out some Gordon’s green and mix up a couple of G&Ts with Schweppes tonic, using Castle Bridge in one and Gordon’s in the other. I offer them blind to DBS and ask which he prefers. Without much deliberation he chooses the Ghanaian gin. In truth even the 37.5% Gordon’s green is more complex than Castle Bridge in my opinion, but the latter has an appealing freshness to it and, as I suspected, when mixed with tonic it performs its role in the partnership perfectly diligently. I suspect its simplicity might actually make it ideal with more elaborate tonics.

So there you have it, ladies and gentleman: at £2–3 cheaper per bottle Castle Bridge is better value than Gordon’s (and a higher ABV too).

Our booty for the day. Yes, that's a carton of Egg Nog

At £15 a bottle Uganda Waragi (40% ABV) is dearer. The term “waragi’ is actually a generic one for locally distilled spirit, made from all kinds if things including banana and cassava. The word apparently means “war gin” and was coined by European ex-pats, referring to the practice of drinking before battle for “Dutch courage”; the local word for such spirits was enguli. I suspect the actual “gin” style of flavouring was brought by the settlers themselves and adopted locally. Despite decades of legislation plenty of the stuff is distilled illegally—only last year 80 people died from drinking toxic banana moonshine.

The beverage that is branded as Uganda Waragi is made by East African Breweries Ltd, makers of Tusker beer and ultimately owned by Diageo. It is triple distilled from millet and its sales represent a third of the entire spirits market in Uganda. Interestingly, although this product clearly is what you would call gin, the label only uses the word in very small writing near the top, and I have seen pictures of some labelling which doesn’t mention gin at all. (Perhaps it is only labelled as gin for export.)

It’s quite sweet, floral and spicy compared to Castle Bridge, with a remarkable perfume to it, though I feel that it could possibly tend towards cloying, with something in the smell that reminds me of plasticine. Up against SW4 it actually has a similar overall profile though the latter is more complex as well as more juniper-driven.

DBS carted three bottles of the stuff away. I’m assuming this batch is harmless, though, now I think of it, I haven’t heard from him in a while…

* The label does helpfully explain that it is "blended from superior ingredients according to an old secret formula".

To find out how we got on with the bitters, plus various strange soft drinks, tune in for Gin Safari 2, coming soon…