Ratamacue Stew

I am a fan of the martini.  Have been for a long time.  There’s something comfortable and soothing about the ritual of mixing gin and dry vermouth in a shaker full of cold ice, shaking it (don’t bruise the gin), and pouring the elixir into a martini glass with blue cheese stuffed olives waiting to soak up the juniper goodness heading its way.  I do like dry vermouth to soften the martini instead of a “pass the vermouth bottle by the glass” dry martini some prefer.  My martini for two recipe is five parts gin to one part dry vermouth.  Shake and pour over two blue cheese stuffed olives.  Rinse and repeat.

 

For the longest time I had a preference for Beefeater gin. I had nothing against other gins. I just preferred Beefeater for both the flavor (I like London Dry Gins) and an irrational loyalty to the Crown given I'm 1/2 Canadian. If that last part doesn't make sense to you, understandable. Canada is still considered a Commonwealth country and has an allegiance to the British throne. But I digress.

Perhaps true to my real roots (I'm German, Scottish, and Irish), I bought a bottle of Hendrick’s Gin which is distilled and bottled in Scotland. I was immediately converted. Not because it's Scottish (although that does help!), but because of the amazing flavor. The description on the back of the bottle sums it up best:

"This handcrafted gin is distilled from a proprietary recipe which includes traditional botanicals such as juniper, coriander, and citrus peel. The "unexpected" infusion of cucumber and rose petals results in a most iconoclastic gin."

I couldn't have said it any better. The nose of this gin matches the quality of the flavor on the tongue. Pair it with a nice dry vermouth and you have a martini made in heaven.

Enjoy!