G'Vine Gin Review
We've said it before, and we'll say it again - we like the resurgence of boutique gins we're seeing right now. With a well-made gin, you can rely on your drinks to be generally on a different level than other white spirits - plus, you put it in martinis, and there's nothing wrong with that. A few sips of a good gin martini and the complexity will understand why the British used to call it "Mother's Ruin."
There's a whole laundry list of botanicals that are added to G'Vine, not the least of which is green grape flowers, along with a host of others. With so many flavors added, you can either end up with a complex drink, or a muddled mess where you can't tell what's going on. Find out what we thought below - plus find out how one of the botanicals in the drink might help clear up that embarrassing burning sensation you picked up on your last trip to Mexico.
G'Vine Gin
"Small Batch Distilled Gin"
Imported from France
Typical Price: About $40 for 750ML
Website
Company Line:
G'Vine is small batch distilled from neutral grape spirit with fresh whole-fruit botanicals softened by the infusion of vine flower. Coming from all over the world, nine rare and fresh whole-fruit botanicals chosen for their purity and aromatic and healing properties - ginger roots, liquorice, green cardamom, cassia bark, coriander, juniper berries, cubeb berries, nutmeg and lime - are infused by family during 2 to 5 days and distilled in the grape neutral spirit in small liqueur-maker stills to get the best quintessence. Infusions of vine flower and fresh botanicals are then blended together and copper-pot distilled a last time to get an ultimate and perfect smoothness and personality.
Look:
The G'Vine bottle was stout and square shouldered, with a green tinge. The liquor itself was clear as a bell.
Nose:
When we first opened the bottle, the thought that crossed our minds was "perfume," and we don't mean that in a bad way. The scent was floral and citrusy at the same time, and continued the trend we've been seeing of missing or minimized juniper smell. It was delicate and didn't have an in-your-face attitude we've seen in some gins. We were definitely intrigued by the odor, and it made us want to delve deeper into the bottle, which we did.
Taste:
The mouth feel was nice and round, with a good tingle on the tongue and a nice, clean citrusy back end. We could taste the grape essence floating in the background, and while there was no mistaking it for wine there was some primal connection we could sense there. There was not the sharpness we've experienced in other gins, and even our more flavored vodka-drinking, gin-hating interns were able to wrap their tastebuds around it without much trouble. All in all we did find the botanicals combined to make a very complex taste, and there wasn't that overwhelming muddle we were worried about finding.
Verdict:
Even more than other gins we've tried, G'Vine's big and exotic taste will most likely cause people to either love it or loathe it. Some of our intern reviewers loved the semi-floral experience of drinking it in martinis and tonics, while others felt there was a bit too much going on.
That being said, some people might be gun shy about dropping the top shelf ducats this bottle will cost you, but if you're a flavored vodka drinker it might be worth the risk since this could be your gateway into the world of gin drinkers.
Oh, and our note about clearing up that irritating burn? Apparently, cubeb berries are an Indonesian fruit that was once used to treat a little thing called gonorrhea. And now it's available in gin form! Combine that with the anti-scurvy benefits of the lime and the stomach-settling effects of ginger, we might have found ourselves a health tonic we'd drink with some regularity.
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Posted by Liquor Snob at March 21, 2007 7:09 AM
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