The gin and tonic, a deceptively simple drink
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Welcome to the cocktail spirit from Small Screen Network. I am your host Robert Hess. A drink is simple as the Gin and Tonic, you really want to think there is a lot to understand about it. But in fact, there is. Tonic water, which obviously is going to be in the drink or a carbonated beverage flavored with quinine plus some sugar and a couple of other ingredients.
Here in America, quinine is actually regulated by the Federal government and they put a limit on the amount of quinine that can go into tonic water. So, the American tonic water has traditionally been lower in quinine than the English tonic water. And quite frankly, all the companies in England making tonic water have spend awful lot of time really focusing on making great tonic water here for America.
For the last couple of months, there has actually been a number campaigns coming out with really great tonic water. One of them is Q Tonic, which is the tonic water I am using here today. If this is not available locally for you, you can get an online at kegworks.com and they are actually doing I guess a pretty good business. So in Q Tonic comes in a nice and cute design of bottle too.
But back to the Gin and Tonic, there are probably two drinks that people think about when they think of gin based drinks. One of them of course is the Gin Martini and the other is the Gin and Tonic. The Gin and Tonic usually gets the short shrift simply because it is just a highball type club drink so that you know it is not that exciting. But when you get the right gin and the right tonic water combined together, it really provides an excellent layering of flavors.
The way it is made is extremely simple. We start out with just a standard rocks glass and then fill that with ice. First, we add two ounces of gin and I am actually going to measure the gin even as simple as these two ingredients I mean how hard is that. One important thing here is you want to make sure the you are monitoring the amount of alcohol you are using in a drink.
If you are simply at home free pouring in, you might put two and a half, three-four ounces in. And before you know it, you are not really paying enough much attention to the drink itself. You are paying attention of walking across the room.
By measuring your alcohol, you are actually paying better attention to the quality of the drink you are getting rather than the quantity of the booze you are taking in. So we are just going to add that straight to the glass, this is what is called a built drink. Meaning, we are actually building it in the glass. We then take our tonic water and then we just simply pour the tonic water over the top to fill the glass up.
Now for garnish, I am using a lime wedge. Now, quite often when you are sticking a wedge of a citrus whether it is lemon or lime in a drink like this, one of the things you are doing is actually providing the guest to keep it already of squeezing lemon if they want to. And so for Gin and Tonic, you traditionally would not squeeze the lime in there but most of the guests actually do that themselves.
Just pin that on the side, add a couple of sip straws and there we have the Gin and Tonic.
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Hello, I am Robert Hess from the Cocktail Spirit on the Small Screen Network and when I am looking for bar tools and supplies, I would go first to kegworks.com. Kegworks.com carries a huge selection of unique and high quality bar tools from simple strainers, cocktail picks, hard to find beers, cocktail recipe books and even blenders. Everything you need to make your next cocktail or complete your home bar. So check to kegworks.com today. Cheers!
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