Beer and Other Non-Whiskey

My Wandering Eye: The Laird’s Apple Brandies That I Purchased in 2021 and Then Forgot About.

My Wandering Eye is an ongoing series reacting to the rising prices in the bourbon world. We’ve reached a place where even average products have hit the range where they compete price-wise with other types of aged spirits. If I’m going to be asked to drop $40 to $70 on a mid-range bourbon, I might as well see what else I can get for that money. I hope to see if another spirits category offers something downright tasty in that price range. The goal isn’t to find cheap spirits but to maximize the quality I’m getting at a particular price point. The reviews in this series will all be written through a bourbon drinker’s lens.

I’m known amongst friends and family as the “absent-minded one.” Now, mind you, most of them don’t say it to my face. But you can tell that it is common knowledge among my family that if you want Eric to remember something, make sure that you tell his wife too. Or skip Eric entirely and just go straight to his wife.

Nothing proves my point on this more than the posts for this wee… Wait just a damn minute. This seems awfully familiar.

So now that you’ve gone back and read all about the history of Laird & Co that I wrote last week, I can tell you that these two bottles were actually purchased quite a while ago. See, I was watching a lovely cooking/history channel on YouTube called Tasting History with Max Miller when he put up one of his “Drinking History” episodes. That’s right, history, cooking, and drinking. If you know me, you know why I like this show. My wife likes it because, apparently, he has the prettiest blue eyes and she likes to look at them.

So in this particular episode, that I can’t remember the details of, he was using a bottle of Laird’s Old Apple Brandy in a historical cocktail. Laird’s Old Apple Brandy is a seven and a half year old apple brandy that is bottled at 80° proof from Laird & Co. out of New Jersey. I was smitten with the drink and the idea of having a bottle of said brandy in my house. So smitten, that I immediately went to his sponsor, Curiada.com who coincidentally carried the exact brandy that he was using.

What are the odds?

I also picked up a bottle of Laird’s Bottled in Bond Apple Brandy as well. And then I set them on my shelf, waiting for an opening to come up in the editorial calendar. Then I forgot about them because…well…I’m guessing something shiny entered my field of view and I was consumed with that instead. It really is a wonder that I’ve been doing this for over a decade without getting distracted and wandering away.

So, let’s dig in and see how they taste.

Laird’s Old Apple Brandy – 7 1/2

Purchase Info: Currently $41.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Curiada.com. I paid a little less than that in 2021.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $2.80

Details: 40% ABV. 7.5 years old

Nose: Apple juice, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Mouth: Apple juice, nutmeg, and a touch of oak.

Finish: Gentle, yet with a little heat. Notes of apple juice and cinnamon.

Thoughts: This is delicious. Lots of apple flavor. Just a touch of oak, enough to alter the flavor, but not enough to get in the way of the delicious apple. My only quibble on it is that I wish it was a higher proof. It's just a bit too gentle for my tastes. But that is a small quibble. Yum.

Lairds Straight Apple Brandy Bottled in Bond

Purchase Info: Currently $37.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Curiada.com. I paid a little more than that in 2021.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $2.53

Details: 50% ABV. DSP-NJ-1

Nose: Brown sugar, apple, a touch of cinnamon, and a very floral vanilla.

Mouth: Floral vanilla, cinnamon, and just a touch of apple.

Finish: Warm and medium length. Powerful notes of apple juice and spicy cinnamon.

Thoughts: I think I know why the proof was lower on the 7 year version. The apple notes on this are pretty subdued compared to its lower proof older brother. Which is really the opposite that I'd have expected from an older product. I'd have expected the older one to have less influence from the wine and more from the barrel than the younger one. That said, this is nice and spicy and the apple really comes through on the finish. I like this one. Hell, I like them both.

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My Wandering Eye: Laird’s 10th Generation Apple Brandy – Bottled in Bond

IMAGE: A Bottle of Laird's 10th Generation Apple Brandy laying in a snow bank.

Nothing proves my point on this more than the posts for this week. I mentioned on Tuesday that I didn’t have a clue exactly when or where I had purchased that whiskey. Well, I have one better today. In doing research for tonight’s post, I was looking for some of the older posts that I’d done for other Apple Brandy releases from Laird’s. I knew that I’d purchased them last year just to review them. There was a bottled-in-bond release and a seven-year-old release. I bought them online after seeing them used in a YouTube cooking show.

The problem was that I never did write about them. They’ve been sitting on my shelf waiting for me. Patiently. Never complaining. Honestly, they seem like a couple of nice chaps. As I said, I only noticed them when I went looking for what I said about the company last year, and…yeah.

So let’s dig into the people who are making Laird’s Apple Brandy and see why this one is called 10th Generation. According to the Laird & Company website, their story starts in 1698 when Alexander Laird arrived in North America from Scotland. It seems he was a distiller back home and took up the trade in New Jersey using locally abundant apples. There is a reason they claim to be America’s Oldest Distiller.

The Laird family had a small operation until around 1850 when a fire destroyed the Inn where they made their AppleJack. Before then, they’d had a reputation for good spirits. They are even mentioned in the diary of George Washington, who requested their recipe for “cyder spirits.” After the fire, they decided that since they were rebuilding, they might as well build big and started to explore a wider commercial production.

Since that time, they have followed the path of many of the distillers. They made due during Prohibition by selling non-alcoholic apple products and medicinal spirits for the government. They helped with the war effort in World War 2, not by making industrial alcohol as other distilleries did (though they may have done that too) but by making pectin from their apples to help preserve food for the war effort. These days they are still run by the Laird family. A member of the eighth generation is currently the president of the company.

Ok, so why is tonight’s whiskey named after the tenth generation? Well, here it is straight from the product description:

For over two centuries, nine generations of the Laird family have been intimately entwined with the production of America’s oldest spirit, Applejack. To commemorate the historic event of a tenth generation Laird continuing our legacy, we proudly introduce “Laird’s 10th Generation Apple Brandy”. We invite you to celebrate with the Laird family and enjoy a taste of American history in every sip of this artisanal, hand crafted brandy.

So, now that we know the story let’s learn about the important part. How does it taste?

Laird’s 10th Generation Apple Brandy – Bottled in Bond

Purchase Info: $45.49 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $3.03

Details: Five years old. 50% ABV. Bottled-in-Bond. DSP-NJ-1.

Nose: Dried apple, brown sugar, cinnamon.

Mouth: Nice and spicy. Dried apple, cinnamon, and vanilla.

Finish: Medium to long and warm. More apple, vanilla, and cinnamon.

Thoughts: This might be my favorite apple brandy I've had yet. It features a strong apple flavor throughout that is missing from many other apple brandies that I've had. Plus, unlike many that are bottled at 80° proof, Laird’s 10th Generation is Bottled-in-bond and has enough proof and heat to keep this BourbonGuy happy. Big fan of this one.

Look for the “forgotten two” next week to see if this is better or worse than those.

My Wandering Eye: Bas-Armagnac Delord, 25 ans d’âge

IMAGE: the Front label of Bas Armagnac Delord 25 year old.

I have a very bad habit of finding presents when I go shopping for them. But, it isn’t what you think. See I go shopping for other people and end up with presents for me. And it happens every year right around Christmas. I’ve mentioned in years past that my Dad is a big fan of brandy. Especially Korbel brandy. He joins his fellow Wisconsinites in that preference. Anywhere from between half and two-thirds of the yearly output of Korbel brandy is sold in Wisconsin.

When I was young, I’d buy my dad a bottle of Korbel for Christmas. Soon I realized that he was buying multiple handles of Korbel throughout the year and really didn’t need me to get him his favorite brandy. So I started branching out to other varieties of Korbel brandy, VSOP, XS, etc. I even was able to find him a 12 year old version of Korbel after a friend of mine gave me a blind taste from his bottle. These days, I try to find him something new every year. Just to give him something a little special. And this year is no exception. I found him a bottle of Laird’s 10 Generation, five year old Bottled in Bond Apple Brandy. Look for a review of that in the coming weeks since I couldn’t pass up a bottle for myself as well.

But tonight we are looking at an Armagnac that cost a bit more than that and is just a bit older as well. So, you may be asking, what is Armagnac anyway? That’s a very good question. And honestly I only have the smallest idea. I know that it is from the Armagnac region of France…and that’s about it. So let’s do what any good citizen of the internet would do and look it up on Wikipedia:

Armagnac is a distinctive kind of brandy produced in the Armagnac region in Gascony, southwest France. It is distilled from wine usually made from a blend of grapes including Baco 22A, Colombard, Folle blanche and Ugni blanc, traditionally using column stills rather than the pot stills used in the production of cognac, which is made predominantly from ugni blanc grapes. The resulting spirit is then aged in oak barrels before release. Production is overseen by the Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité (INAO) and the Bureau National Interprofessionel de l'Armagnac (BNIA).

Huh, that’s a lot of words to say “made in Gascony, France, made from grapes, distilled once in a column still, and aged in oak. But what do you expect from an encyclopedia? they aren’t really meant to be entertaining. One interesting tidbit from further down the article is that apparently we can thank Armagnac for all the spirits we enjoy today as it was “the oldest brandy (and liquor) recorded to be still distilled in the world. In 1310, Prior Vital du Four, a cardinal, wrote of its 40 virtues.” So there’s that.

My love of Armagnac stems from the fact that you can usually find a very delicious bottle that is in the 15-30 year range for less than the price of a small car. I even have one that was distilled in 1968 in my closet that I got for less than $300. That’s 50 years of age (I bought it a few years ago). Bourbons in that price range are in the mid to low teens. Or don’t have a stated age at all. Tonight’s brandy was had for less than $100.

Here is what the producer had to say about it (translated from French by Google translate…translated from Google translate to understandable English by me):

Made from Ugni Blanc, Colombard, Baco and Folle blanche grapes. Fermented with traditional vinification to obtain an aromatic, slightly acidic wine with a low alcohol content. Continuous distillation in column stills equipped with “spider-legged” trays. Aged in new French oak barrels (strong toast) then a finished in “semi-exhausted” or even “exhausted” barrels leading to over 25 years in oak. 40% ABV.

Let’s see how it tastes, shall we?

Bas-Armagnac Delord, 25 ans d'âge

Purchase Info: $91.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Price per Drink (50mL): $6.13

Details: Age 25 years in oak barrels. 40% ABV.

Nose: Toffee, dried fruit, coffee, chocolate, and cinnamon candies.

Mouth: Caramel, cinnamon, dried fruit

Finish: Medium length and warm. Notes of chocolate, coffee, dried fruit, brown sugar, and a hint of cinnamon.

Thoughts: If you like a dried fruit note, this is really good. At 25 years old, it is running at a little less than $4 per year of age. That's less than half of what Heaven Hill's pricing strategy of $10-12 per year of age for their special releases (though admittedly the regular releases are in the $4-6 range per year of age). Like most brandies. I could wish that it had a little more proof on it. But that might obscure the nuance of the palate. Overall though this is a nice thing to throw on the special shelf with all the other things I don't want to go through too fast. And heck, even my wife who doesn’t usually care for brandy says she like this one. All in all, I’m pleased with my present. And for the record, I did end up sharing it with my Dad too. As he does every year he informed me that he liked it and that it was “almost as good as his Korbel.”

Apothic Red Winemaker’s Blend and Bourbon and Red Wine Cocktails

I will …

IMAGE: A bottle of Apothic Red Wine sitting in a foot of snow.

I will sometimes get tips or Christmas Gifts from my clients. This year, one of the gifts was a super tasty red wine named Apothic Red Winemaker's Blend. It is a delicious red wine from Modesto, California. Now, I wouldn’t normally talk about wine on a bourbon site, but they had more than one Bourbon and Wine Cocktails on their website that I tried and they were good enough that I wanted to share them with you. First though, Let’s go over some quick tasting notes for the wine itself. I like many wines, but I’m by no means a tasting expert on them so forgive me if I use the wrong terms.

Apothic Red: Winemaker’s Blend

Purchase Info: This was a gift, but I can get it locally for about $10.

Nose: Dark cherry and a hint of chocolate

Mouth: Relatively sweet but nicely balanced by tanins. Fruity with notes of dark cherry and cranberry.

Ok, so now that we have that out of the way, let’s get into the cocktails because these were a big surprise to me. I’ve got two to share with you. Both are from the brand website. One is very wine forward, the other is very bourbon forward.

Maple Bourbon Sour Cocktail

1.5 oz. bourbon
1 oz. fresh lemon juice
1 oz. maple syrup
0.5 oz. Apothic Red

Directions:

In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, combine bourbon, lemon juice and maple syrup.
Shake and strain into rocks glass with a large piece of ice.
Float the Apothic Red over the drink (pour gently over the bar of a spoon) and serve.
Garnish with lemon zest and a cinnamon stick

Thoughts: I’m not normally a bourbon sour sort of person, but the addition of the wine floating on top really took this to another level. I’m honestly shocked at how good this is. The maple adds a nice sweetness too. Just really tasty.

This next one is a little more involved and it originally made four drinks. I decided to cut it down a bit but feel free to double everything and make the full batch if you prefer.

Apothic Spice Cocktail

4 oz Apothic Red
0.5 oz Bourbon
2 tbsp brown sugar
5 cardamom pods
0.5 inch fresh ginger, (peeled and sliced)
5 whole cloves
3 whole star anise
pinch cayenne pepper
whipped cream
cinnamon sticks
Bourbon Cream (optional)

Directions:

Combine wine, brown sugar, cardamom, ginger, cloves, and star anise in a small sauce pan and heat to about 145°F while stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar.
Remove from heat and add the cayenne, Bourbon and optional splash of Bourbon Cream.
Strain the mixture into 2 glasses and top with whipped cream and a cinnamon stick and serve while still warm.

Thoughts: This is like a glass of Christmas. There was no bourbon cream in the original recipe but I loved the silky mouthfeel that stirring in the whipped cream gave me. The bourbon cream accomplished that while allowing your drink to not look like vomit (as mine did when I stirred in the whipped cream). I enjoyed the wine, but this cocktail is really why I’ll be buying this one again.

I hope that you all had a Merry Christmas and please have a safe and happy New Year.

Fever-Tree Distillers Cola

When I was a child, a soda was a treat. Even if…

When I was a child, a soda was a treat. Even if it was in the refrigerator, you had to ask to have one and often times the answer would be no. As I grew older, soft drinks became a bigger part of a young person’s life. I still remember when the first soda machine was put into my high school cafeteria. I remember that the old folks grousing: “what’s next, a McDonald’s instead of healthy food?” To my knowledge a McDonald’s was never brought in.

Of course when I was older I had soda all the time. If one could binge drink soda, I did. Eventually, I decided to get healthy and gave up almost all soda. Though a Diet Pepsi was my breakfast most mornings until I quit going into an office. These days, instead of soda being a treat, it’s what I have when there is nothing else to be had. Most of my soda consumption comes on road trips from small gas stations with even smaller beverage selections.

Except of course when I want a highball. Most of the time I use soda water, rum or gin and some citrus. But every so often a Rum and Coke, a Cuba Libre (basically a rum and coke with lime juice), or a Bourbon and ginger ale just sounds too good to pass up. It was with that thought in mind that I picked up the Fever-Tree Distillers Cola from my closest Total Wine. Though it was in shelved with the bourbon, it made me really want a rum and cola. So I tossed it in the cart with everything else.

Fever-Tree Distillers Cola

Purchase Info: $5.99 for a 4 pack of 200 ml bottles at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN.

Details: No artificial sweeteners or high fructose corn syrup.

Nose: Spicy and sweet. Notes of caramel and baking spice. It smells like a Cola.

Mouth: Sweet. Notes of citrus oils, caramel, and a touch of wintergreen as filtered through a cola base.

Thoughts: This is the most interesting cola that I've ever had. I know it was developed as a mixer, but I like it by itself. It's a big step up from a Coke. But since it is a mixer, we need to try a couple of spirits with it. Let's do the Plantation rum from Tuesday in a rum and cola, maybe we will even get fancy and make a Cuba Libre and then let’s mix this with bourbon as well.

To see how this fares when used as part of a highball I made four versions. Two used rum and two used bourbon. Each spirit was combined with either Fever-Tree or Coke. In both cases, the Fever-Tree was the winner when tasted blind. The Coke tasted artificial and almost chemically. I don't normally like bourbon and cola and the Fever-Tree was no exception. I do however like rum and cola and I like a Cuba Libre even more. This paired wonderfully with the Plantation O.F.T.D. so I will be using the rest of this four-pack in that way. I'm very happy with the purchase and this may be my go-to cola going forward.

My Wandering Eye: Plantation O.F.T.D. Overproof 69% Rum

IMAGE: Closeup image of Plantation OFTD Overproof 69% ABV Rum.

As we are quickly coming up on the Autumn Whiskey Release season, I think it is just about time to take a quick break from whiskey and let our eyes wander around the liquor store a little bit. Kind of a palate cleanser before we start taking a look at a bunch of bourbons that we will probably never see on the shelf or won’t be able to afford should we see them. And so I’m taking a look at an inexpensive, by bourbon standards, rum that works amazingly well both with a little ice or in a cocktail.

Here is what the producer has to say about this one:

Plantation O.F.T.D. Rum is our take on that classic style of overproof rums. And not just ours: to join him on the quest to get the blend and the proof just right, Alexandre Gabriel scoured rum joints around the world to find six grizzled old salts who knew which end of a rum bottle was which. Together they came up with this blend of Guyana, Jamaica and Barbados rums, bottled at 69 percent alcohol. O.F.T.D. officially stands for Old Fashioned Traditional Dark but if you ask any of the seven collaborators who were in the room when this blend was born, they’ll tell you it really stands for something else that was exclaimed when the winning rum was tasted…

Let’s see how it tastes.

Plantation O.F.T.D. Overproof 69% Rum

Purchase Info: $30.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Price per Drink (50 mL): $2.07

Details: Blend of Jamaica, Guyana, and Barbados Rums. 69% ABV.

Nose: This is like the best molasses and ginger cookie you've ever had. Strong notes of molasses and ginger are backed up by cinnamon, citrus, and coffee.

Mouth: Very hot (as expected at 138° proof) with notes of caramel, molasses, chocolate, ginger, nutmeg, and citrus.

Finish: On the long side of medium length and warm. Notes of molasses, nutmeg, and chocolate.

IMAGE: I really liked this so it gets a smile.

Thoughts: To paraphrase the quote above. Oh fuck, that’s delicious! It’s good on its own but is very hot. Water tames the heat and ups the sweetness, and brings in a little mint. I've used this in cocktails many times, and it works amazingly in all the ones I’ve tried. To me, it didn’t matter whether the cocktail normally calls for a light rum or dark. It still worked. Overall, O.F.T.D. is a great rum. I’m a big fan.

Corkcicle Whiskey Wedge

If you’ve met my wife, you will know that she h…

IMAGE: A frosty glass of whiskey fresh from the freezer. The ice cube is frozen into the glass in a wedge shape.

If you’ve met my wife, you will know that she has a bit of a glassware problem. We have so many whiskey glasses that we’ve had to sort them. We have the ones we use regularly. We have those that are pretty and sit on knick-knack shelfs. And we have boxes of those that don’t fit into either category in our storage facility. So because of the multitude of glassware we own, I seldom buy more.

Unless we are on vacation, that is. This is how we got so many in the first place, I like souvenirs.

I also like cocktails. And so when Total Wine decided to stock what had the possibility of being the perfect cocktail glass in amongst the bourbon, I noticed. And since I am always on the lookout for content, I thought I’d put Corkcicle’s Whiskey Wedge through its paces and bring you along for the ride. Total Wine was selling it for about $25. The Corkcicle website charges the same.

So first off, what is the Corkcicle Whiskey Wedge? Basically, it’s a glass that comes with a silicone mold that freezes ice into a wedge shape in the glass. The tagline on the box is “Goodbye, Watered Down.” The company claims that the wedge shape of the ice minimizes surface area and melting, resulting in a drink that is cold but not watered down.

Now that is the same claim that is made by makers of fancy ice sphere molds as well. And as I have one of these fancy ice molds, I’ve noticed that the large chunk of ice does, in fact, melt slower than the same volume of ice in cube form. So is the Whiskey Wedge better than a glass with a large piece of ice in it?

To find out, I conducted an experiment. I had a large ice cylinder left over from a photo shoot, so I used that in a glass alongside the frozen Whiskey Wedge. The experiment is simple. Freeze the Whiskey Wedge, and when it is ready, put the Ice Cylinder in the glass, and pour in two ounces of high-proof whiskey. I used Elijah Craig Barrel Proof. I initially did this exactly the way I would do it if I were making a cocktail. The glass was room-temperature. I never remember to pre-cool my glassware, and this was no exception. My notes are below:

After 2 minutes: the drink with the ice cylinder has noticeably melted compared to the Whiskey Wedge. The one with the cylinder tastes more dilute.
After 5 minutes: the Whiskey Wedge has visibly melted and changed shape.
After 15 minutes: the Whiskey Wedge is noticeably darker than the drink with the ice cylinder. The Whiskey Wedge is also still much less diluted in the mouth.

Initial Thoughts: Square glasses are hard to drink out of, but I'm impressed. The drink in the Whiskey Wedge held up much better than the one with the ice cylinder. I wonder how much of that is because the glass containing the ice cylinder was fresh from the cupboard, whereas the Whiskey Wedge was fresh from the freezer. The initial round goes to the Whiskey Wedge, but let's give it a fair fight. For try two, I will freeze both glasses.

After 2 minutes: Both pieces of ice have melted about the same visually. The drink with the ice cylinder is slightly more dilute in taste.
After 5 minutes: The dilution in the Whiskey Wedge glass has caught up, and both are about the same in taste.
After 15 minutes: The drink with the ice cylinder is visibly lighter in color, and the drink in the Whiskey Wedge is much stronger in the mouth.

Conclusion: The only knock on the Wedge is that I personally dislike drinking out of a square glass. It works as advertised. In the same time frame, it melted less than a comparable volume of ice in a different shape. Though freezing the glass containing the ice cylinder helped it close the gap, the Whiskey Wedge still worked better at not overdiluting the drink while still adding a bit of needed dilution. When I bought this, I thought it was a pretty gimmick. But it works as advertised.

I fully admit that this is not a very scientific experiment. If it were, I would have measured the volume of liquid that went in (which I did), let it sit for the allotted time, and then measured the volume of liquid that was poured out after time. I was not about to waste tasty and expensive bourbon that way, though, so you get this result instead. Overall, I’m impressed. I’ll probably be picking up a second glass to go with the first.

Elijah Craig Barrel Proof after 15 minutes in a glass with a cylinder shaped piece of ice and in the Corkcicle Whiskey Wedge.

My Wandering Eye: Hendrick’s Orbium Gin

My Wandering Eye is an ongoing series reacting to the rising prices in the bourbon world. We’ve reached a place where even average products have hit the range where they compete price-wise with other types of aged spirits. If I’m going be asked to drop $40 to $70 on a mid-range bourbon, I might as well see what else I can get for that money. My hope is to see if another spirits category offers something that is downright tasty in that price range. The goal isn’t to find cheap spirits, but to maximize the quality, I’m getting at a particular price point. And one thing to remember is that these reviews will all be written from the perspective of a bourbon drinker.

IMAGE: The pretty blue bottle of Hendrick's Orbium Gin

It is summer time here at the ol’ Burke household and in my mind, summer means gin. And since I saw this very interesting gin sitting on the shelf of my closest Total Wine, I decided to revive my favorite series on the site: My Wandering Eye. Now, this isn’t the type of spirit that my eye usually wanders to. In the past I’ve stuck pretty close to the brown spirits of Rum, Brandy, Tequila, etc. Though there was that one time that I compared every gin in my house.

But regardless, this is the very definition of a wandering eye. I was standing next to the gin aisle waiting for a response from my wife regarding a text I’d sent to her. As I was standing there, the bottles of Hendrick’s Gin caught my eye. There were three of them. And while I am not a huge fan of the original, I’m always intrigued by new takes on the gin flavor profile.

I love flavor. It’s why I love to cook and one of the reasons I found spirits so interesting in the first place. I love how flavors can combine to create something better than the sum of it’s parts. So when I saw three different Limited Releases of Hendrick’s sitting side by side, I decided to take a closer look to see which I was going to pick up.

And yes, I knew I was only going to get one, I already have 10 or so other gins in my cocktail cart.

I ended up getting Orbium, a version that is flavored with wormwood, quinine, and Lotus Blossom. I don’t care for Gin and Tonic’s because I find tonic water to be too sweet, but I like the bitterness that tonic water provides. My hope was that when used in a Gin Rickey, this would kinda split the difference between your normal Rickey and a G&T. So before we jump into what I thought of Orbium, let’s see what the distillery has to say about it:

Hendrick’s Gin reimagined with additional extracts of Quinine, Wormwood and Lotus Blossom. Deeply and dazzlingly complex, Orbium combines surprising sweetness with a distinct lingering finish that spirals from zesty to floral, moving onto an altogether unexpected alluringly bitter climax.

Hendrick's Orbium Gin

Purchase Info: $38.49 for a 750 mL bottle at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN

Price per Drink: (50 mL): $2.57

Details: 43.4% ABV.

Nose: : Floral botanical notes that include sage, mint, and lemon zest among others.

Mouth: Sage, ginger, mint, lemon.

Finish: Spicy and warm, lemony, and after everything else fades, bitter.

IMAGE: I really like this so it gets a smile.

Thoughts: Ok. So this isn't something I would just sit down and sip out of a glencairn. But that said, out of the 10 or so gins in the cocktail closet, this is the closest I've found to one that I'd sip neat. I'm a much bigger a fan of gin cocktails than I am of sipping gin neat. So let's try it in my favorite gin drink, the Gin Rickey and then in a ginger ale highball as recommended on the back of a different Hendrick's gin that I almost picked up instead.

Gin Rickey: This pairs very well with the lime juice in the Rickey. I usually use Beefeater for it's assertiveness in the cocktail, but with the quinine in the gin, this is halfway between a Rickey and a Gin & Tonic. Very tasty.

Highball: This is sweeter than I'd like, but that is the fault of the ginger ale, not the gin. The gin and ginger ale play very nicely together. The floral gin notes meld perfectly with the Seagram's ginger ale.

I am so glad that I picked this one up. It is delicious. I love the bitterness that it brings to the drinks. The lemon citrus notes play very nicely with both the citrus notes in the ginger ale and the actual citrus in the Rickey. Big fan. I think this will be my go to until it is gone and I head back to Beefeater.