{"id":489,"date":"2020-01-24T12:26:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T12:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cocktailians.com\/2020\/01\/gin-trivia-part-5.html"},"modified":"2020-01-24T12:26:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T12:26:00","slug":"gin-trivia-part-5-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/?p=489","title":{"rendered":"Gin Trivia! Part 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

As seen here earlier<\/a>, Kerry Greene<\/a> and I put together a trivia quiz all about gin last year. Here are the next few questions, along with my discussion of the answers. As before, I've obscured the answers by putting them in white text on a white background; just highlight the area between the brackets to see what's there, and click on smaller pictures to embiggen them.<\/p>\n

These are some bonus (i.e., unused) questions that we cut from the initial lineup of the quiz, in favor of the ones you've seen throughout the week:<\/p>\n

\u2666    One ingredient characterizes all gins, no matter the style — as a matter of fact, it\u2019s legally required to include it if you want to call your spirit \u201cgin.\u201d What piney berry is obscured from this gin flavor diagram?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Beefeater[Juniper<\/span>]<\/p>\n

This seemed too easy, even for a first question. The diagram depicts the flavor of Beefeater, from gin-review blog The Gin Is In<\/a>. I like how they break down the six main flavor dimensions of gins. (I view Beefeater as the quintessential London Dry gin, and marvels at how good and especially how consistent it is; I was once talking with Beefeater master distiller Desmond Payne<\/a>, who spoke of having a portrait of Beefeater founder James Burrough looking down on him from his office wall, and knowing that he\u2019d have to be utterly consistent in following the old recipe, and to only innovate on his own time…which is what begat the brand extensions such as Beefeater 24<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

[Juniper<\/span>] is lovely, and contains all sorts of interesting flavor compounds<\/a>. London Dry<\/a> style gins tend to really emphasize the [juniper<\/span>]. \u201cNew American\u201d\/\u201dContemporary<\/a>\u201d or other new gin styles often minimize it or use it as just one element among many botanicals. (Some \u201cgins\u201d almost do away with it entirely, and Ketel One is even doing \u201cbotanical vodkas\u201d<\/a>, which are basically gins without the [juniper<\/span>]. After all, gin is essentially flavored vodka that includes a particular flavor.)<\/p>\n

\u2666    Both of your quiz writers count a particular classic cocktail among their favorites – the Aviation, a beauty that makes you feel like soaring. The renewed availability in 2007 of what liqueur on the American market made the Aviation\u2019s recurrence in North American bars possible?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Cr\u00e8me de Violette\/Cr\u00e8me Yvette<\/span>]<\/p>\n

Punch<\/em> limns the history well<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
Though typically referred to as a \u201cforgotten classic\u201d in the early years of its revival, the Aviation had never completely vanished, thanks to its inclusion in the oft-consulted Savoy Cocktail Book<\/em>, published in 1930. However, when curious young bartenders commenced their spelunking ways in the 1990s, digging through libraries and used books stores in search of old cocktail manuals and the formulae they contained, the Aviation quickly became one of the prime beneficiaries of their research.<\/p>\n

One of those drink detectives was San Francisco bartender Paul Harrington, who inserted the Aviation, as well as a history of the drink, into his seminal 1998 book, Cocktail<\/em>. \u201cI was not aware of anyone else making the drink at that time,\u201d remembers Harrington. The drink was also featured in other influential volumes, including William Grimes\u2019 history of the cocktail, Straight Up or On the Rocks<\/em> (1993, reissued in 2001), and The Craft of the Cocktail<\/em> by Dale DeGroff (2002).<\/p>\n

Those books all featured the Savoy recipe, which called for only gin, lemon juice and maraschino liqueur. A sea change in the Aviation\u2019s fortunes came when an earlier recipe was found in Hugo Ensslin\u2019s 1916 Recipes for Mixed Drinks<\/em>. That spec called for a fourth ingredient, the then-mysterious [cr\u00e8me de violette<\/span>]. (Drinks historian David Wondrich, in the introduction to the 2009 reproduction of Ensslin\u2019s book, memorably recounts how, in 2004, he nearly dropped his beat-up volume in a bowl of soup upon clapping eyes on the Ensslin Aviation.)<\/p>\n

The new evidence arguably added to the drink\u2019s mystique in the eyes of bartenders, and kicked its rise into high gear.<\/p>\n

Morgenthaler first glimpsed the recipe in Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails<\/em> by Ted Haigh (2004). (Haigh advocates the Savoy version, but noted that the original recipe contained [violette<\/span>].) He never cared for the drink, even then, finding it too sour and floral, but he understood why his fellow bartenders began to serve it.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, that\u2019s an easy one,\u201d says Morgenthaler. \u201cIt was purely because maraschino and [violette<\/span>] were nearly impossible to find. It developed this almost mythological status among those of us who had never tried it.\u201d Add to that its pre-Prohibition status and the then-aborning thirst for gin cocktails, and the Aviation had the goods in spades. It was primed to be belle of the bibulous ball.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2666    Monkey 47 is a super-premium gin from the Schwarzwald area of Germany. What does the 47 in its name refer to?<\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
[47 different botanicals\/bottled at 47% abv<\/span>]<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
\u2666    One of the most common botanicals found in gin is a root also found in Chartreuse, Benedictine, and Galliano. The plant is known as hv\u00f6nn<\/em> in Iceland and Sonbol-e Khat\u0101yi<\/em> in Iran, but what is its English name?<\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
\"Huston-02_430px\"<\/a><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
[Angelica<\/span>]<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
We had another question along the lines of \u201cwhat\u2019s this botanical called?\u201d, and Kerry and I liked the other one better. We thought about putting in clues about how this wasn\u2019t John Huston\u2019s daughter or an art-house movie theater chain headquartered in New York.<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
\u2666    Gin starts out as unflavored neutral spirit (essentially vodka), and is most commonly made by redistilling this spirit with botanicals for flavoring. However, another method of making gin doesn\u2019t involve distilling, and just combines the botanicals with the spirit and strains them out after they\u2019ve added their flavor. What term describes gin made in this manner?<\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
[bathtub gin\/compound gin<\/span>]<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
Most gins use the redistilling method, either with a \u201cflavor basket\u201d suspended in the still to hold the botanicals as the alcohol vapor passes through them, or macerating the botanicals in the neutral spirit for a while and then distilling it, or both. (Bombay Sapphire is notable for only using the flavor basket<\/a>, which they place fairly distant from the heated still.) Some other gins will distill some of their components separately (London distiller Sacred<\/a> does this, producing a distilled spirit for each botanical and then blending them together in various ratios to make their line of gins.) And some, like Sacred, Oxley<\/a>, or North Carolina-based Durham Distillery<\/a>, \u201ccold-distill\u201d their gins or elements of them, using a vacuum system to lower the boiling point so botanicals don\u2019t taste cooked.<\/p>\n

[Compound gin<\/span>] is usually the cheapest possible gin and has a reputation for not being particularly good, but there are even artisanal [bathtub gins<\/span><\/a>] on the market. (You can<\/a> make your own<\/a>!)<\/div>\n

 <\/div>\n
\u2666    Yes, a Martini is a gin cocktail. Make sure you include vermouth, and it\u2019s traditionally garnished with an olive or a lemon twist. If you switch the garnish to a small pickled cocktail onion, what drink do you have?<\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
[Gibson<\/span>]<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
We had a ton of \u201cwhat cocktail is this?\u201d questions and we thought the gimlet one worked best. This is a pretty standard bit of cocktail trivia, too.<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
\u2666    A popular drink in Northern Italy during the late nineteenth century was the Milano-Torino, which combined equal parts of the bittersweet orange Campari from Milan and Martini Rosso sweet vermouth from Turin. A refreshing variation on this drink was the Americano, which lengthened the Milano-Torino with a couple ounces of soda water. Another variation achieved greatness in 1919 or 1920, when a nobleman asked a Florentine barman to \u201cirrobustire\u201d or \u201cfortify\u201d his Americano with gin in place of soda. What was the Count\u2019s namesake drink, comprising equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari?<\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
[Negroni<\/span>]<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
\u2666   <\/div>\n
\n

\u201cA dry martini,\u201d he said. \u201cOne. In a deep champagne goblet.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOui, monsieur.\u201d<\/strong>
\u201cJust a moment. Three measures of Gordon\u2019s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it\u2019s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?\u201d<\/strong>
\u201cCertainly, monsieur.\u201d The barman seemed pleased with the idea.<\/strong>
. . . \u201cThis drink\u2019s my own invention. I\u2019m going to patent it when I can think of a good name.\u201d<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What name does James Bond eventually settle on for this variation on the classic Martini?<\/strong><\/div>\n

 <\/div>\n
[Vesper<\/span>]<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
Great passage (from Casino Royale<\/em>, later used more or less verbatim in the 2006 movie), but it's not a great drink<\/a> and as noted we had a bunch of "ID-the-cocktail" questions. An earlier version asked players to name the brand of gin called, and we didn't love that either.<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
\u2666    Whiskey that's bottled at a high level of alcohol (50% abv or more) is often referred to as "bonded" or "bottled in bond." High-alcohol rum is often called "overproof." What's the most common term for gin bottled at at least 57.1% abv?<\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
[Navy strength<\/span>]<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
We didn't want to have two questions referencing the [Royal Navy<\/span>]. Also, "[navy strength<\/a><\/span>]" is a relatively recent marketing creation from the '90s to sell overproof spirits.<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
\u2666    A classic cocktail that\u2019s been described as \u201cthe evolutionary missing link between the Manhattan and the Martini\u201d was possibly named after the county seat of Contra Costa County, California. Stir [Old Tom] gin, sweet vermouth, Maraschino liqueur, and bitters together over ice, serve up, and garnish with a lemon twist, and what do you have?<\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
[Martinez<\/span>]<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
I happen to really like this cocktail, and we liked the geographical angle, but it's another ID-the-cocktail question. (The quote comes from this Saveur<\/em> article<\/a>, and Imbibe<\/em> had a great history<\/a> of the drink.)<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
I hope you enjoyed the quiz; we used Richard Barnett<\/a>'s The Book of Gin: A Spirited World History from Alchemists' Stills and Colonial Outposts to Gin Palaces, Bathtub Gin, and Artisanal Cocktails<\/em><\/a>, with Aaron Knoll<\/a>'s Gin: The Art and Craft of the Artisan Revival<\/em><\/a>, Tristan Stephenson<\/a>'s The Curious Bartender's Gin Palace<\/em><\/a>, and Dave Broom<\/a>'s Gin: The Manual<\/em><\/a> in our research. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As seen here earlier, Kerry Greene and I put together a trivia quiz all about gin last year. Here are the next few questions, along with my discussion of the answers. As before, I've obscured the answers by putting them in white text on a white background; just highlight the area between the brackets to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ingredients","category-seen-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}