How to Drink Gin like a Boss - with Trish Brew (Fever Tree/Gin Palace)

Hello and welcome to the third of our three gin-based videos with my food friend and gin expert Trish. So the reason that I did ask Trish on to talk about gin is that she managed one of Melbourne's most famous gin bars or probably the most famous gin bar in Melbourne called Gin Palace for eight and a half years which is kind of like dog years in bartender years that's So definitely a really awesome fountain of knowledge on this spirit and she's now taken that and has gone to work for Fever Tree because as they say if three quarters of your drink is a mixer then it should probably be a good one. The best. So that's probably where we should start in this one we're kind of looking at different ways to use gin and gin and tonics are obviously the thing that come to most people's minds Do you want to tell us a little bit about Fever Tree and what their kind of mission was when it came to actually making these mixes? So tonic was an anti-malaria medicine we already discussed if you were a part of the army or the navy you were given a daily ration gin. So in the 19th century in India troops who were stationed there had to have their daily ration of anti-malaria medicine which is called a tonic. So because tonic was quite bitter it actually comes from the bark of a tree called the cinchona tree and quinine is the property as an anti-malaria medicine they didn't really quite like the flavor so much so what they were doing is they're putting their daily ration of gin into their tonic to make the tonic more palatable and that's the birth of the gin and tonic. So tonic goes back a very long way and I guess the best thing about Fever Tree is they wanted to harness that story and create natural flavors and go to these parts of the world where you can get these amazing flavors like you would with coffee or tea and reinvigorate these really amazing gins. You know gin isn't one size fits all and neither is tonic anymore. So is the idea that you would kind of pair each of these with a certain type of gin? Indian tonic water is where it all began. It matches really well with your classic London dry style. It is a little bit more bitter paying homage to being an anti-malaria medicine. Fever Tree uses these beautiful bitter oranges from Mexico and also marigold flower so a little bit floral but quite bitter and that pairs perfectly with a London dry being very juniper dominant like we've talked about being very fragrant and a little bit louder as a style but it's definitely not for your more subtle gins. So you've also got your Mediterranean tonic water invented for your more delicate Mediterranean floral style of gins. These lemon thyme and rosemary from Provence and it is quite delicate half the amount of quinine. So you really can taste your gin through it. This is actually the tonic that got me onto tonic it's kind of a gateway tonic I might say. Which is why I didn't realize this until recently but Trish was not a gin drinker when she started working at Gin Palace or a tonic drinker. Not at all it's a slippery slope looking me now. But yeah so this guy kind of obviously the obvious the obvious one to put it with is Gin Mari. Mediterranean botanicals? Absolutely. And a bit of a cheat sheet for you. Colors pair up so if something is blue it goes with blue, something pink goes with pink. If you get a cheese. You guys think this bartending is difficult. It's really not like if you get a wine and a cheese from a certain part of France for example they're going to go together very well. And this fun speaking of pink this fun looking pink one what what's that one about? So we did talk about how you were given a ration of gin if you were in the army or the navy good times. So bitters. Everyone's heard of Angostura bitters before. I hope. Everyone's got Angostura bitters. It was invented to be an anti-nausea for sailors. So these sailors these naval personnel were given their ration of gin every day. They were also kind of seasick so they put their bitters into their gin and you know this is how cocktails were born it was just like mixing it all together and having a great time. And so we took out the middleman and added pimento, Angostura bark of course, Madagascan vanilla, ginger and cardamom. So it's quite a fragrant style that works really well with spice-led gins. And then the you know it's kind of the sun is starting to come out which I feel leads to well in Australia anyway sorry for the rest of the world that are just heading into winter. But this guy's kind of my go-to in summer the elderflower on it. Fevertree elderflower is really fragrant and I would almost think it's kind of like a cocktail on its own. It's these beautiful elderflowers which are such a precarious flower to use because they only bloom for about six weeks of the year. Fevertree harvest them in the night time when they're at full bloom very moist to harness and lock in that beautiful elderflower flavor. So Hendrix is a very common floral style of gin and I say to everyone you really haven't had a Hendrix gin and tonic until you've had it with Fevertree elderflower because it is so sounds like a brand name but it's actually kind of true. It really is though and you know I guess like on that point like being a bartender as you are it's I work for Amaya, I work for a gin company Amaya. It's probably for us and correct me if I'm wrong but all you want to do at the end of the day is give someone a drink that they really enjoy and it sounds really cheesy but that's what I enjoy and love and gets me through the day. The kind of big fashion nowadays is for a heap of crazy garnishes in in your gin and tonics. Do you A. Do you kind of reckon that it actually makes a pretty big difference and B. Do you have some go-tos that you like to to fall back on? I think the biggest thing is compare or contrast so with anything it's like a cheat sheet to be like oh that one's floral that's floral I'll put a floral garnish in there perfect and yeah contrast is also very important when you might have uh mediterranean herbs and flavors it's like quite savory herbal you might want something a bit floral might maybe a bit salty so uh for example with the Fevertree mediterranean and gin mare both mediterranean herbaceous a little bit of floral on the tonic maybe you want to add a bit of salt like a little bit of olive so compare or contrast definitely yeah it's very important and I mean I guess I talk about that this in all the videos is it is that balance like it's it's really not rocket science it is just thinking about rounding out flavors um as you say otherwise it will probably be a perfectly good gin and tonic but I think the awesome thing about garnishes is it can just elevate it so I definitely I really like using herbs as we've discussed because a they look really pretty and be the um you know obviously your your you taste with your nose first so kind of getting that gets your brain ready almost for what it's going to taste like also looking at some different kinds of citrus like oranges and grapefruits as much as lemons and limes are awesome um that can just kind of highlight some other flavors that maybe you wouldn't find in the gin super easily without them kind of in there to just underpin them Now on to my next favorite topic is martinis uh so we do have um some lengthier episodes on martinis in depth but obviously you know speaking of the range of gins that we have here um it's pretty easy to see how you know literally combining gin and vermouth you could end up with however many permutations from that one drink do you have like a go-to style or you know if you're doing a wet martini so with more vermouth or a dry martini what would you kind of pair with that so martinis are very personal very it's someone's fingerprint you know so you can't get done for a crime without your fingerprint so no one should ever tell you you're in trouble for the martini you order is basically the same thing for me so my preference for a martini is a classic dry style very gin forward a little bit of vermouth and a My favorite quote is by Dorothy Parker it also makes me feel good about bringing quite a lot of martinis I like to have a martini two at the very most three I'm under the table or I'm under my host Cara's my host today What's your favorite? You've made me enough you know I do know you like them a little bit wet you like them fierce you like them salty and a little bit savory I do like it I do like a savory and wet martini so something like gin mari with plenty of vermouth in there which I guess kind of harks back to what we're saying about the balance because if you're if you are using those more kind of powerful and you know gins with a lot of flavor actually just cutting it with that bit more vermouth I find kind of makes it easier easier to drink rather than these quite simple straightforward gins you can kind of just be straight down the line like you know pretty much just cold gin with it and and it's not kind of too overwhelming flavor wise in terms of like something like monkey 47 as we were saying there's like heaps of botanicals in there big juniper punch high in alcohol what would you do with that do you reckon? Well I classify that one as quite a loud floral gin because it's higher in alcohol to make it sippable you might want to dial it back with vermouth so make it a wet martini again compare or contrast so to soften it you might want to add a more delicate vermouth to lighten it up a little bit balance it out for people who are not so intense but also like if someone likes a really massive flavor you might want to match that with a really big aromatic forceful vermouth maybe even a bit of absinthe but being floral if you think about flowers maybe you wouldn't have olives and flowers together so you might not want to put olives in there or olive brine to make a dirty martini you might want to garnish it with something bright and light and fresh to balance that out so I love a grapefruit peel or maybe lime peel because they're louder citrus aspects I think that'd work really well yeah and in terms of these we kind of touched on like with the Battle-Aged and the Old Tom they're kind of like a little bit sweeter maybe and sort of rounder do you have any sort of go-tos or any cocktails that you would reach for those over maybe a London Dry or a New World style gin? I think one of the biggest challenges the bartender well now gin's cool so everyone drinks it but back in my day people didn't drink gin because they're like oh it's you know it's gross that's really intense whatever so the ways that you'd kind of wean people onto it were with an Old Tom style that Richard sweeter kind of style that in a Tom Collins so fresh lemon juice bit of sugar topped up with soda and tall glass kind of like an old style pub squash lemonade you know it's a great flavor that you associate with your childhood a bit with a Barrel-Aged gin maybe someone's a whiskey drinker and you might want to convert them because you work in a gin bar and you're one of those people so you can use it in place of whiskey or you might make an old-fashioned you might want to mix it with a different kind of sugar so you could think about things like honey a different kind of bitters it might be a bit lighter and a nice fresh bit of orange and that is a good way to not alienate people from things they already drink so that's probably what I'd recommend. And I guess kind of the same thing maybe with your more sort of slow and infused gins what's your sort of go-to for that is it again if maybe people are not super into gin or yeah definitely I mean it is very far from a traditional gin those gin infusions they are very fruit driven so you can utilize them in a lot of different ways I guess like the one that won most people over for me with slow gin is a Gin Sour which is a cocktail that any bartender can make or should so you know two measures of slow gin one measure of lemon half a measure of sugar or maybe a bit less to taste because it is a sweetened style egg white or wonderfimer one of these new world ways to emulsify and make it a fluffy drink shaken served up or over ice and you've got this beautiful fresh fragrant plum flavour works really well as well. Well that's making me thirsty so we might leave it like that and go get a gin. Hopefully that's given you a little bit of insight into different ways that you can utilize all of this you know amazing spirit that you have available to you and maybe the next time that you're making a gin and tonic have a little think about what flavours you're looking for in the gin and that you want to enhance with the mixer and the garnish and treat yourself make yourself a little fancy one for for your next sunny day in the garden so maybe let me know in the comments what your favorite gin and tonic combination is or what your favorite martini is. If you haven't watched the two other episodes that we have on gin then please feel free to click on the link below thank you very much for watching and now you know!