Gin & Tonic - 3 Ways

Well, it's about damn time we do the gin and tonic, am I right? So today's gonna be a fun one and a long one, so buckle up. We're gonna do three gin and tonic recipes and do a little taste test of a variety of different tonics and gins. But to kick things off, let's just start with a delicious and simple recipe for the gin and tonic. The goal here is to keep things as cold as possible to maximize carbonation. So we're gonna start with a chilled Collins glass and add in 2 ounces or 60 mils of gin that ideally has been stored in the freezer. Next, grab one of your favorite tonic waters and ideally that is also as cold as possible, pop the cap, and then we're gonna try to slowly, gently pour this in the glass, trying not to agitate it too much. We're going for about 4 ounces or 120 mils here. And we add the tonic after the gin so that we don't have to stir it up to mix because when it sinks to the bottom, it'll sort of mix itself. Then grab a wedge of lime and squeeze as much as you want in here. I'm just kind of winging it. And then we're gonna add our ice at the end and because I'm a fancy gentleman, I'm gonna use a clear stick of ice that I made. If you want, you can rest that lime wedge on top as a little garnish and then grab a metal sippy cylinder here and we're just gonna gently tuck it in and let's give it a taste. This ice is so clear it could be a Scientologist. I think I've used that joke like three times already, but whatever, I'm pretty proud of it. Okay, moving on. This is delicious. It's a classic gin and tonic. It's really refreshing, crisp. It just screams summer to me. I love it. All right, let's take a step back here and talk about what even is a gin. What makes gin different from any other spirit? Well, gin is basically a neutral spirit. Think of it like a vodka, but it is distilled with botanicals and the predominant flavor is juniper. All right, so we got some juniper berries right here. Let's give it a taste. And I've actually never tried one of these before. They're chewy and sweet and they taste like gin. Now, of course, there's a ton of different gins out there and I've got a sampling here of some of my favorites. So we're gonna start by trying this St. George Botanivore gin and it's nice. It's clean. It's my first sense. I get a little grapefruit. Yeah, definitely citrus forward, grapefruit, orange and a little pepper, a little pepper on the nose, I think. All right, Gin Mare, which is a Spanish gin and it's another sort of dry style of gin and again, very citrus forward. I get a little rosemary, maybe a bit lighter on the juniper flavor. The bottle says it has basil in it. I'm not getting as much basil, but definitely a little orange. It's really nice. Next up we have Junipero, which is a local favorite of mine here in San Francisco. And the big thing that stands out from this is that it's definitely stronger. It's about 50% ABV, which makes it a bit harder to get tasting notes when you drink it neat like this. But it's very clean. You definitely get the juniper notes. It's a great dry mixing gin. All right, next up we have Ransom Old Tom gin. Now Old Tom is a distinct style of gin. It's a bit sweeter and this one has actually been aged and you right away can tell because it's got this oaky, woody aroma and flavor. Less juniper forward, I would say, and if you smelled it, you would think it smells like whiskey. Some of the herbs come through. I get some thyme. I get some rosemary. I get a little pepper as well. I love this gin and highly recommend it. And again, there's tons of gins out there. There's Hendrix, which is more cucumber forward, but I like a nice clean London dry for my gin and tonics. Now, arguably, the tonic you choose is more important because it makes up more of the drink and it has a more distinct flavor. So we're going to go through a few options here. And we're going to start with this whole category of what I'd call cheaper tonics. Here we're using Refresh, which is the Safeway house brand. And right away you can tell this one tastes a lot like soda. Like you could drink this straight. It's very lemon-lime forward. It reminds me a lot of Schweppes or Canada Dry. It's good. It makes for a good gin and tonic, but it's a little sweeter. All right, we have entered into the premium tonic category and we're starting off with Q Tonics. And to me, this one is the driest of them all, the most bitter, least sweet, and like right away you get this intense flavor. It's almost like a berry flavor, I'd almost describe it, even though there's no berry in it. So I like this one a lot. I don't think I would drink it straight. It really would be something saved for a gin and tonic, but it's really tasty. Next up we have our first from Fevertree. This is the Indian Tonic. And it's not as strong of an opening flavor, maybe a little sweeter than the Q. A little bit more like a soda, like a Sprite. Maybe slightly less bubbles than the Q. It's really close. The carbonation is very similar. But the flavor's got some intensity and there's some citrus, some orange to it. It's also really nice. And next we have this flavored Elderflower Tonic, also from Fevertree. And this is really good. I mean, it's got an elderflower flavor. If you've had Saint Germain, it tastes very similar to that. I think as a result it's a little less bitter, but it's really nice. I like this a lot. It would make for a really easy, interesting variation on a gin and tonic. And that brings us to the last one, 1724, which has a bit of a story behind it. So I guess 1724 refers to the number of meters above sea level in Peru on the Inca Trail, where the Chinchona plant is harvested to make the quinine, which is the bitter element in tonic. So anyway, this one is very drinkable. It actually reminds me a lot of the Refresh one at the beginning that's a lot more like a soda, lemon-lime flavor, more kind of like a Sprite that's got this bitter element to it. It's good. It's just definitely not as dry as the other premium ones. But I want to hear from you guys. Let me know in the comments your preferred brand of gin and tonic for your G&Ts. But for our next cocktail, we're going to make the Gin Tonica, the style of gin tonic that is popular in Spain, notably for its large, balloon-sized glass. And here we're going to use Gin Mare, which appropriately is a Spanish gin. Add 2 ounces or 60 mils in your chilled glass. And I'm psyched to try this elderflower tonic in a cocktail. So we're going to angle the glass and again pour about 4 ounces or 120 mils of the tonic. Celebrate the halfway point of this video by squeezing in a bit of lime juice. Load that up with ice, and because you're fancy, you're going to use more of your clear ice. And one of the signatures of a Spanish gin tonica is just to go a bit nuts with the garnishes, the fruits, the botanicals, the herbs, whatever you want. So here we're going to tuck in some sliced strawberries, drop in a small handful of juniper berries, and to complement the rosemary notes in the gin, let's amp that up a little bit with some fresh rosemary in the glass. Finally, we're going to work in our tiny, sippy cylinder, and let's try our over-the-top gin tonica. And it looks muy bonita, and right away you get that rosemary on the nose, which is wonderful. And man, that elderflower tonic is fantastic. I really love this, and it's a simple way to step up your gin tonic. If you've got a recipe, let me know in the comments. All right, you know when we break out the aviary cocktail book, we're about to get fancy as f**k. So let's see if we can make their take on a gin and tonic. Hopefully it looks something like this. So first up, the hardest part is to make those cucumber spheres. So we're going to start by adding about a liter of filtered water to a bowl. Next, we need some sodium alginate, which is derived from brown algae or seaweed. It's a key part of the spherification process, and we're going to add seven and a half grams to the water. Using an immersion blender, we're just going to blend that up until no clumps remain, and then we're just going to strain it through a chinois, chinois, chinois, and let that rest for at least an hour, but up to 24 hours. Now the recipe calls for the juice of four English cucumbers. Now if you don't have a juicer like me, we're going to chop them up and blend them like this. In retrospect, I would actually probably add another one in here to make sure you get enough juice. Once that is nicely pureed, I'm just going to strain this through a nut milk bag, or you could use a cheesecloth, I guess, here, and you're just going to try to get all that juice out. Put that in a container, but then we are very quickly just going to measure out 1,000 grams of this cucumber juice and pour it back into a bowl. To that, we're going to add 108 grams of sugar, then 6 grams of kosher or sea salt. Next, we need 20 grams of our calcium lactate, which is also going to help with that spherification process. I'll put links to all these on my website. Now the question is, will it blend? And the answer is, of course it will, it's just liquid and powders. Blend them. Now we need to freeze this liquid in these molds, which are 5 eighths of an inch thick or 16 millimeters. Now one thing I remember from my aviary jungle bird video is to only fill these about three-fourths of the way full. But I'm actually making a new mistake here, in that there's a lot of froth and foam in this liquid. We don't want that to freeze because it's going to create bubbles and it's going to mess up the whole spherification process. So here's a clip of me putting these in the freezer, just for demonstration purposes. And once that is completely frozen through, you'll see some of these have some of the foam frozen into them, and some of them are a lot cleaner. So the lesson here is to make sure the foam dies down before you pour in the mold. All right, next up, we need to take that bowl of water and sodium alginate and heat it up in the microwave, not too hot to form bubbles. Then we need two bowls of cold tap water. It also helps to have one of these perforated spoons, but you could also use like a julep strainer. All right, so now we're going to pop out about five or six of these frozen balls directly into our warm sodium alginate bath. And right away, the interaction of the sodium alginate and the calcium lactate will start to form a membrane. Now, it's important not to let these balls touch each other at this point, or they'll start to stick together. And once the spheres are completely encapsulated, you'll move them to your first bowl of cold water. Move them around a little bit and then repeat in the second bowl. Grab a mason jar filled up with some of that leftover cucumber liquid mixture and gently lower them in. Ideally, try to use these within eight hours. Now, we should have enough liquid to make 600 of these spheres, or about 100 per cocktail, which is way more than I'm going to use. I've probably got like 50 or 60 good ones in here. All right, with the hard part over, let's make the damn cocktail. We're going to start with two ounces or 60 mils into a mixing glass. Next, the recipe calls for 1 1⁄2 ounce or 15 mils of green chartreuse, which is a delicious herbal liqueur, liqueur? Anyway, next we need 1 1⁄2 ounce or 15 mils of simple syrup. And for our acidity, we need 1.3 grams of citric acid. We'll see why in a second. Then we need 4 ounces or 120 mils of fever tree tonic water. But Nick, why are you playing fast and loose with that carbonation? And to that, I say cool your jets because you're about to find out why. We're going to put the glass in an ice bath to cool it down to near freezing temperature. And then, yes, we're going to throw it into a carbonator. That's why we use the citric acid, presumably because we don't want the lime pulp clogging our relief valve. If you watched my sparkling Negroni video, you've seen how this movie ends. We're going to carbonate it two times, releasing the air in between carbonations to get as tight as bubbles as possible. Okay, after only 36 hours, we are now ready to build this cocktail. We're going to take our chilled Collins glass and slowly fill it up about a quarter of the way full with our cucumber spheres. Then take our freshly carbonated G&T and angle the glass, slowly pour it in, trying to preserve as much carbonation as possible. And already, this thing looks insane. Now those spheres floating to the top are probably the ones I messed up with too much air trapped inside of them. Now we're going to drop in our big glass Sidney cylinder, give that a little stir. And this looks like something the Jetsons would drink. I am super excited. Let's give it a taste. Cheers. All right, the flavor of this drink is excellent. It's really well balanced. The green chartreuse is a really nice touch with this, but really the star of the show are those cucumber spheres. They just explode in your mouth in this burst of cucumber flavor. It actually works really well. This is a fun one to try if you're looking for something crazy at home, and that'll be $42, please. Just kidding, that drink is on the house because today we are sponsored by Roan. And I'm actually really excited to be partnered up with Roan because I had a fantastic experience shopping with them. So who is Roan? Well, they make high quality menswear for any occasion. And they've got premium shorts, shirts, tank tops, socks. Check out this swimwear. They just engineer clothing perfect for the office, long flights, commutes. In fact, they've got this commuter collection, which is kind of the performance alternative to the everyday workwear. They got everything from pants, polos, shorts, shirts, and they're all super lightweight, comfortable, and wrinkle-free. And right now they're actually doing a huge promo for my viewers. If you go to roan.com slash cocktail and use promo code COCKTAIL, you're going to get 20% off your first purchase. I really recommend these guys. The quality is fantastic. Oh, and if you want any of the recipes or equipment I used in this video, just check out my website. I'll put a link to that below as well. Cheers.