2023-09-05 06:51:11
Time.news – “Do you have any preferences for gin?” It is not at all uncommon, when ordering a gin and tonic, for the waiter to ask this question. Everyone has his favorite label and each label has, consequently, his taste. But is that still the case? Today there is such an “explosion of versions and trends” that “has effectively emptied the simplicity of a great classic”, states Gambero Rosso.
Right now, the G&T is undoubtedly one of the most rising drinks of the moment, with a proliferation of Gintonerie or GinTonicherie, if you prefer, places that have a very wide selection of Gins, which serve the “hundreds” of new labels that they are born every year with aromas and botanicals among the most varied and presented “with garnish of all types”.
So much so that if up to thirty years ago the Gin Tonic “was a battle drink”, to be consumed in the disco “without many pretensions”starting from the 90s “something has changed” following the birth of Contemporary Gin, a term used to indicate all those who “use non-traditional botanicals”, a trend that has increasingly become synonymous with territoriality.
To the point that in Italy alone there are about 140 active distilleries compared to an estimate that speaks of “at least a thousand labels” of gin on the market with at least regional diffusion. And there are also countless gin labels made one-off for bars, associations and restaurants. A real productive effervescence that makes if gin is experiencing its own “renaissance” todaybut its own success is also decreeing its end.
A paradox, according to the refined food and wine monthly: “There is a superfetation that no longer corresponds to different production methods, to particular business choices, to life and drinking philosophies that tell who produces”. In short, gins are no longer made on a consumer scale, but tailored to entrepreneurs who want a gin that “represents them”: “There is only one producer, the brands are different” but most of the new products placed on the market “is daughter of marketing ideas, products made by contractors, often created hundreds of kilometers away from the place whose territoriality is boasted on the label”, specifies the newspaper. So much so that “there are also several gins distilled abroad which, however, explicitly communicate their Italian character” thus confusing the consumer. “It is possible to declare that you have used Amalfi lemons on the label even just by adding one per 1,000 liters of Gin and for the rest by relying on any product at minimal cost”, accuses Gambero Rosso.
That is why the waiter’s initial question (“Do you have any preference for Gin?”) it is anachronistic if not useless. As if to say: one gin today is as good as another. Hence also the decreed “end of G&T”.
And this is also why the times of the aphorism coined by Winston Churchill according to which “gin & tonic has saved more lives and minds than doctors have” are long gone. But that may no longer be the case.
#longer #Gin #Tonic