As some of you readers know, I was given a couple of classy gins for Christmas last year to be reviewed on this site. Needless to say, it’s been AGES since that day and I recently got around to telling you about the first one, Jinzu, which you can see featured here. The time has come for me to go over the second one: Brooklyn Gin. So far, this is the second gin from the US to grace my blog and it tastes rather different from the woody and earthy No. 209.
It was the bottle’s design in particular that first tickled my fancy when I saw it at the gourmet shop. With its industrious, gritty, old world and craftsman-like look, I found there was a certain level of artistic flare and character that stood out when compared to the other gins on the shelves. After doing some research I discovered that the creators of Brooklyn Gin hired a separate company called Spring Design Partners to help them come up with this, quite frankly, gorgeous design.
The gin itself has been produced with just as much care and attention. Like some other high-quality gin makers, Brooklyn Gin’s distillers produce smaller amounts of their spirit (a hundred bottles daily) than some of the larger, more well-established brands that produce hundreds, if not thousands of bottles every day. Since the end product is “handcrafted”, Brooklyn Gin takes longer to make, but tastes better than many mass-produced gins currently on the market.
Brooklyn Gin + Fever Tree Mediterranean Tonic Water + Lime
Straight from one of the five boroughs of NY.
It is stated that Brooklyn Gin is made with 5 fresh locally-sourced citrus peels (lime, lemon, orange, kumquat and one is being kept a trade secret, but it may be grapefruit after seeing it in their website) and hand-cracked juniper; ingredients that truly come out as you drink it. The reason for this is because using fresher ingredients allows the oils and essences to integrate with the gin in a stronger way, so that they can really be tasted. Other makers often use dried or frozen botanicals to flavour their gins, which results in a less intense taste. In particular I find the juniper to be more pronounced in Brooklyn Gin than in any other gin.
The makers recommend using Fever Tree tonic water with a bit of lime peel. Fever Tree makes a higher quality tonic water and it tends to be more neutral in taste. If combined with Fever Tree’s Mediterranean variety however, (which possesses a subtle citric flavour) the gin’s fresh citrus notes are heightened yet further, making this combination, in my opinion, the perfect gin and tonic!
Brooklyn Gin + Schweppes Tonic Water + Lime
I always add an extra recipe in case some of you would like to experiment with other ingredients or tonic combinations like I do. Brooklyn Gin, being very secretive about some of their botanicals, have disclosed the fact that they use cocoa nibs and lavender as well when distilling, which pushed me to try it with Schweppes Heritage Orange Blossom & Lavender tonic water and lime peel. The outcome was completely different when compared to the previous recipe.
This tonic water is a very bubbly one (which is to be expected from Schweppes) and as we already know, bubbles tend to help amplify flavours. As you take a sip however, the taste of the orange blossom and the smell of the lavender masked Brooklyn Gin’s unique flavour. Its overpowering floral qualities ended up stealing the show rather than complementing the gin itself. The essences of the fresh botanicals found in Brooklyn Gin can hardly be tasted anymore, whereas using a more neutral and slightly less sweet option, like the Mediterranean Fever Tree, makes it the superior choice.
Obviously, when I decided to experiment with this second mixture, I wasn’t totally sure it would work (as when trying anything new, really). Sometimes you have to risk it to get the biscuit, so if you decide to make it for yourself or have found an alternative recipe, feel free to drop me a line with your thoughts.
Find out more about the products mentioned in this post below.
Brooklyn Gin
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Gin Tonic Time 