Tuesday, August 01, 2006

This about sums it up

Is there anything better on a hot summer morning, um night than a Tanqueray and Tonic. Some people can only drink gin and tonic in the summer; they classify it as a "summer drink" I categorize it as yummy in my tummy, no matter the season.

Gin is made from the berries of the juniper plant. In Dutch, juniper is called "geniver" which is where the name "gin" derived from. I only drink Tanqueray, CB only drinks Bombay Sapphire. Because I drink waay more gin than CB, Tanqueray is what we keep in the house. Currently there are a plethora of gin manufacturers around the world. The most notable are the two I mentioned above, since its debut in 2000; Tanqueray Ten has received many awards including double gold metals in 2004 and 2005 at the San Francisco Spirits Competition. Bombay Sapphire has won many awards since its debut in 1992. And then there's bathtub gin.

Whenever I hear the phrase bathtub gin I always think of the movie Annie. Because Ms. Hannigan always had a tub full of bathtub gin, and she was hilarious singing "Little Girls" and hiccupping while drinking bathtub gin out of a ladle. The phrase bathtub gin refers to a concoction used during prohibition. Wikepedia defines it as: Cheap, sometimes dangerous, spirits placed in large containers, such as a bathtub. Enough water was added to prevent the alcohol from being poisonous and juniper oil was added to cover the awful taste of the alcohol. Complex cocktails from the 1930's may have been developed to hide the terrible taste of bathtub gin. Gin was used because the juniper taste was the easiest to synthesize.

I've never tried to make bathtub gin, or hooch, but should the dreaded bird flu come, at least I know I have options.

CHEERS!

No comments: