Gin & Tonic: Premium vs Premium Plus

[jbcallender]

I guess you would have to drink six premium G&T's day, every day at the $5 upcharge to make it worth the $29 a day upgrade cost. 

[barric]

I prefer my gin in martinis up/olive, and can hardly taste differences when mixed with tonic.  Here's how to test yourself.

Have someone make 3 gin and tonics, 2 with one gin, one with another brand.  Make them exactly the same.  Measure.  Use the same amount of ice and tonic.  Be sure the mixer has marked the glasses  and knows which is which.

 

Taste the 3 glasses.   Repeatedly.  Not always in the same order.

Can you correctly identify the two matching glasses?

If not, well you know.

If you can, which do you prefer? You might be surprised.

 

This is a good way to test all kinds of liquors.  

 

I have done this with bourbon and a small amount of water.  No ice.  I have found that Evan Williams beats the pants off Jim Beam, Old Grandad and others.  Saves me bucks!

 

[The Shrike]

12 minutes ago, barric said:

I prefer my gin in martinis up/olive, and can hardly taste differences when mixed with tonic.  Here's how to test yourself.

Have someone make 3 gin and tonics, 2 with one gin, one with another brand.  Make them exactly the same.  Measure.  Use the same amount of ice and tonic.  Be sure the mixer has marked the glasses  and knows which is which.

 

Taste the 3 glasses.   Repeatedly.  Not always in the same order.

Can you correctly identify the two matching glasses?

If not, well you know.

If you can, which do you prefer? You might be surprised.

 

This is a good way to test all kinds of liquors.  

 

I have done this with bourbon and a small amount of water.  No ice.  I have found that Evan Williams beats the pants off Jim Beam, Old Grandad and others.  Saves me bucks!

 

I turned a 45-year old who had been drinking Jack Daniel's since he was 19 on to Evan Williams with a blind test.  When he was done he said "Wow, it's so much smoother than JD."  Then his jaw dropped when I said "Yeah, at half the cost."

I don't drink gin often, but when I do I drink it over a couple of rocks without tonic.  So I usually go with Bombay Sapphire, Hendricks, or Tennessee Dry Gin. 

[ppcox]

7 hours ago, Trimone said:

Does one get Fever tree on NCL

No I’ve never seen Fevertree mixers on NCL. They don’t have a flavoured Gin either. My favourite currently is Rhubarb with ginger. So I get a Gunners (G&T with cranberry juice) on a cruise . I cant tell the difference in the Gin or mixer brand then.

[wetcoast]

6 hours ago, ppcox said:

No I’ve never seen Fevertree mixers on NCL. They don’t have a flavoured Gin either. My favourite currently is Rhubarb with ginger. So I get a Gunners (G&T with cranberry juice) on a cruise . I cant tell the difference in the Gin or mixer brand then.

Afaik, the only bar on NCL that has fever tree is the A-List bar

[rbxlady]

19 hours ago, The Shrike said:

If any of you gin fans live around Franklin, TN or are passing through there, take a detour to H. Clark Distilling and grab a bottle of their Tennessee Dry Gin.  You won't be disappointed.

We are thinking about taking a trip to TN in December, so we may be up that way. Thank you for the tip!

[LWAnthony]

Favorite drink...... Hendricks Gin, Fever Tree Tonic, Wedge of lime and a single Star Anise over ice.... 

[The Shrike]

9 hours ago, rbxlady said:

We are thinking about taking a trip to TN in December, so we may be up that way. Thank you for the tip!

What we found funny was that we went there while visiting some of the smaller whiskey distilleries in the area (and they are definitely small).  Their whiskies were decent, but holy cow, the gin was great.

Leiper's Fork Distillery is another one in that area that is definitely worth visiting.  No gin there, but damned good whiskies.

[Karaboudjan]

On 8/31/2022 at 2:36 PM, Jldevlin said:

As a newbie to the Gin and Tonic drinkers is there a huge taste difference in the higher end gins??  In the 70s in Canada it was Lemon gin that we drank and it pretty much turned me off gins for all my adult life lol. A few years ago I had a Bombay Sapphire and loved it.   I have a bottle of Bombay Bramble that I like and would like to branch out a bit.

 

When I comes to gin I think that 'higher end' is more marketing or availability than anything else, and the variability is really more to do with the recipe than objective quality.  So you could very well end up preferring a 'lesser' gin to a 'higher end' one if the aromatics and flavor happen to be more appealing.

[weltek]

Aviation vs. aviation....
I assumed the guy who started that conversation was talking about an aviation cocktail, saying it was easier to taste the gin than in a g&t. But, as for Aviation gin, in a blind home tasting (because otherwise I assumed I'd just lust after Aviation like I lust after Ryan Reynolds), my husband and I both chose Aviation over Hendricks. I enjoy both, though. 

[kjquilts]

Our favorite gin is The Botanist, first enjoyed on the Bliss in 2019.  I believe our sailing was the first where the Premium Plus package was available and we made full use of it.

[SteveH2508]

Sipsmiths and Fever-tree is our preferred recipe.

 

We do have an unopened bottle of each of Sipsmiths batch number 1 of both gin and vodka. We believe that they did not keep a bottle of either.😀

[scooter6139]

When we were first introduced to Fever Tree tonic, it was in a modified G&T from Dukes Seaford restaurant.  They did Botanist, Fever Tree Premium Indian tonic, Giffard's Pamplemousses (grapefruit liquor) and pomegranate  (or something similar).  It was sublime.  Now Pamplemousses is a standard liquor we keep around to mix in other drinks

 

Also, adding St Germaine (Elderflower liquor) is really good if your don't like plain G&T.

[rbxlady]

On 9/2/2022 at 1:20 PM, weltek said:

Aviation vs. aviation....
I assumed the guy who started that conversation was talking about an aviation cocktail, saying it was easier to taste the gin than in a g&t. But, as for Aviation gin, in a blind home tasting (because otherwise I assumed I'd just lust after Aviation like I lust after Ryan Reynolds), my husband and I both chose Aviation over Hendricks. I enjoy both, though. 

I like Hendrick's because of the cucumber infusion that sets it apart from other brands, among other things, but I will definitely try out Aviation.

 

Straying from my beloved Hendrick's reminds me of the old Mike Myers "All Things Scottish" SNL sketch: "If it's not Scottish, it's crap!"