Gin Tasting (June 18th, 2021)
This is our 1st Gin Tasting. The bottles in question were;
| TT Label | Description | Country | Proof | Rating | Price (CAD$) |
| A | Nolet’s Silver | Netherlands | 95.2 | 7.00 | $60.00 |
| B | Tanqueray No. Ten | England | 94.6 | 5.64 | $45.00 |
| C | Hendrick’s | Scotland | 88 | 5.73 | $52.00 |
| D | St. George Botanivore | USA | 90 | 5.45 | $50.00 |
| E | Roku | Japan | 86 | 5.36 | $50.00 |
| F | Plymouth | England | 82.4 | 6.91 | $46.00 |
| G | Monkey 47 | Germany | 94 | 6.73 | $77.00 |
| H | Star of Bombay | England | 95 | 5.55 | $40.00 |
I was never a Gin fan, I had a bad experience with Beefeater early on in my adult life, which tainted my perspective on Gin. After doing this tasting, I have a new respect for Gin, I’m still not going to go out buy a whole bunch of them, like I did with rum, and bourbon, but at least I now understand it better as a category of alcohol.
Of the 4 categories of Gin, we had London Dry Gin, and Plymouth represented, we didn’t have any Old Tom (aka bathtub gin) nor any Genever. We did have a good array of countries from where the Gin was created, USA, Japan, Netherlands, Germany, and of course UK (Scotland and England to be specific).
We had 11 participants on the Zoom call, although I doled out 17 tasting sets, it seems in the summer, people enjoy doing it on their own, at their own pace, at the cottage etc.
We had a diverse group, with participants in Vancouver, Toronto, New York, not to mention Montreal of course. Marcia wasn’t there to pace us, so we finished the 8 shots before 8pm, and we only started at 6:45pm-6:50pm. Also the Habs were playing at 8pm, for Game 3 of the Semi-finals, so people were motivated to finish.
We had some try to use the tasting notes from Distiller.com, to identify the gins, but without much luck. Stephanie holds the record for matching Gins with 4 on 6, and Tristan with Bourbons at 4 on 6 as well.
The winner was “A”, I can’t say it’s very rare anymore for “A” to win, I think this is the 3rd time now, “A” has won. It means i’m not very good at predicting how the group will vote. “A” was Nolet’s Silver Gin, from the same makers of Ketel One Vodka. They’re from the Netherlands, which is interesting. There was very little difference in the votes between 1st and 3rd, literally, 77/76/74, and considering how subjective it is, I doubt there is statistical significance. Anyway, here’s the 3 winners;
The Winners!
1st Place (7.0, $60)
2nd Place (6.91, $46)
3rd Place (6.73, $77)
The next tasting is Rum, it will be in July 2021
The Survey Results
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | |
| Kyleigh | 6 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 4 |
| Emilie | 7 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 7 |
| Wayne | 8 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 7 | 6 |
| Kelly J | 6 | 3 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 9 | 10 |
| Greg B | 7 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 2 |
| Erica | 8 | 5 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| Neil | 7 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 7 | 5 |
| Kelly T | 8 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 10 |
| Becky | 7 | 3 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 9 |
| Mike K | 5 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 8 | 4 |
| Chris B | 8 | 7 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 4 | 9 | 2 |
| Total | 77 | 62 | 63 | 60 | 59 | 76 | 74 | 61 |
| Avg | 7.00 | 5.64 | 5.73 | 5.45 | 5.36 | 6.91 | 6.73 | 5.55 |
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