Greylock Gin.

And since I still have a bit of tonic left, I feel obligated to break out the other bottle of interesting gin I found the other day. Greylock is an award-winning gin out of Massachusetts. First nose: thank you, it smells like a bonafide gin. Flowery juniper, lavender, and some sort of dark, homey spices. It actually tastes like gin too. A strong juniper component with cinnamon, grass and citrus on the back end.

Mixed with the remainder of the Fevertree: It stands out in the tonic, but the lavender component mixes strangely with the quinine. Not sure if G&T is the way I'd want to go with this. Wired Gin recommends more complementary drinks like a Mississippi Mule, Lavender Martini or an Aviation, none of which I've had before but will certainly get around to trying.

Bottomline: I like this gin. It's assertive, refreshing, and new without being obnoxious. Tonic is not its domain, but it will probably lend itself well to more subtle, simple drinks.

No. 209 Gin.

I have a few bottles of gin sitting, none of which I really intended to open before I returned back east, but cutting that Domaine de Canton left me with an open bottle of Fevertree, and I shouldn't let that go to waste. So here we have gin No. 209, an SF-based distillery. I am always on the lookout for local/regional product so this was recommended to me by the staff at Beltramo's. Of note, there is also a kosher version of this gin which is $10 more. I suppose the blessing only worth $10, but I'm also not really sure why gin needs to be kosher.

Straight: Fairly tight in the nose, juniper and citrus, orange maybe. Taste is very neutral. With a 2:1 of tonic, the gin gets pretty lost in there. It's five-times distilled "to extract the most subtle flavors in crafting a truly modern gin". Not sure if that's the way I want to go with this. If this is modern gin, following the trend of spirits like New Amsterdam, well, that's not gin. (New Amsterdam, by the way, while not a bad gin, is a gin for vodka drinkers.) The gin I know grew out of Dutch courage. Courageous, this is not.

Addendum: As I get to the bottom of this G&T, I've started to think that maybe I was initially too harsh. While it still doesn't stand up nearly as well against tonic as other gins, No. 209 is decidedly clean and crisp, so that is worth mentioning.

Moutai Yingbin.

Moutai liquor is apparently quite renowned and well-known among Chinese liquors. The classic Moutai goes for over $100 a bottle, but the proprietor at my favorite Chinese corner store suggested this one which runs for $14. I had been looking at some interesting "White Gold" bottles which had a VSOP rating but was not a brandy or cognac but some sorghum-based liquor. The wife said it smelled bad and was 15 years old; supposedly, these particular bottles were worth more than their $15 price tag indicated but she had simply never bothered to adjust the price because no one ever wanted them. In any case, I had been planning on trying this Moutai eventually and there are several very similar looking packages with widely varying prices, so I figured now was as good as time as any to try this fairly cheap version I had been offered. It was still the standard 53%ABV, but I suspect much of the price difference arises in the refining and aging processes. This must be the quick version to be produced for the masses.

The bottle of a solid white with plastic gold cap, sticker sealed over the breakaway plastic ring. The label indicates it's distilled from 80% sorghum and 20% wheat. The first thing that comes to mind when sorghum is mentioned is Redbridge which was fucking awful. I also apparently never reviewed and posted it because it was that bad. Redbridge, by the way is a gluten-free beer brewed from sorghum. It is terrible, and you should probably just have soda water.

Back to the Moutai:

• Appearance: Clear.
• Smell: Obviously a strong alcohol component but a bit of sake and a lot of sweet.
• Taste: A sharp punch at the beginning but if you can hold on to it for a bit, there is a strong plum sweetness, an wide assortment of sweetness, apple, raisin, fig, prune, very pleasant despite the ABV. Finish is naturally intense.
• Mouthfeel: Oily.
• Drinkability and Overall: I think this would be a great drink to have in small half shots with friends over spicy foods and Korean BBQ to close out a night of drinking with lots of friends.