Gin Glorious Gin by Olivia Williams.
Electronic proof provided by netgalley.comI'm not sure this book was good for me, until I read it I didn't think I liked gin but after reading this book it may be that I don't like the tonic rather than the actual gin. I do think that a great deal of taste testing may be called for...
Olivia Williams' book takes us through the history of gin - how it went from being a luxury drink to being Mothers' (and almost London's) ruin - think Hogarth - and then back again to being a premium drink.
There is a nice balance in the book between history, anecdotes to amuse and recipes to try or avoid. There are also detailed descriptions and illustrations of how the different stills work to make the different types of gin. The convoluted history of the distilleries, and product, always remain clear and I loved seeing how it all fitted together to make an interesting snapshot of social history.
At the very end of the book there are some recommendations of bars to try, pubs to find and also of different gins, their flavours and their mixers. All of this is useful information, especially to a gin novice like myself.
Gin is again an up-and-coming fashionable drink, in Norwich there will be two gin specialist bars before very long, and after reading this book I did head out to one of them to try the product. Apologies for any incoherence and typos this has caused in this blog entry!
for the record today's choice of Elephant gin, ice, fresh strawberries and bitter lemon was very palatable :)
I discovered at a CBB gather that it was the tonic I didn't like, not the gin! Try it with mango juice (fresh if possible but that relies on a good catering team!) and a squeeze of lime, topped up with a bit of fizzy water - hic!
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