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One of the wonderful opportunities that spring from events such as Tales of the Cocktail; San Francisco Cocktail Week; and the Manhattan Cocktail Classic is the opportunity to mix-n-mingle with the big wigs; the hoo-hahs; the people who have decades more experience than anyone currently courting the public eye when it comes to cocktails, bars and mixology.
Gary Regan (or the newly re-baptized “gaz”) is one of the revered personalities in our industry. I say “personality” rather than expert, writer, author or educator (even though he is ALL of the aforementioned) because he has oodles of personality, and isn’t that the Number 1 best quality of a good bartender? Well, to me, it is.
I was lucky enough to snag a few moments with Gaz during the recent Manhattan Cocktail Classic preview weekend on Oct 3 & 4, and even have him autograph my copy of The Bartender’s Gin Compendium. You will see the video interview in an upcoming episode of “Inspired Sips,” my new show with Small Screen Network. In the meantime, here’s a little something for you to sip on…
TLM: What inspired you to write a book totally devoted to gin?
GR: I was “tidying” my computer and realized I had tons of info on gin. I love gin. It just made sense.
TLM: Where does gin fit in modern mixology / what is its impact?
GR: Gin is one of the most complex spirits. It presents a challenge to mixologists, and yet it yields easily to other flavors.
TLM: Do you see a rise in popularity in gin cocktails / gin lovers?
GR: Yes. Bartenders have been playing with gin for years, but now consumers are realizing that gin is, is a very real sense, flavored vodka for adults, and they’re going crazy for it.
Want More ‘Gaz on Gin?’ This Q&A as found provided by the Maestro himself:
Q & A with Gaz Regan
WHY THE NAME CHANGE?
Sometime in the sixties everyone called Gary in the U.K.--which is where I was living at the time--became Gaz. My mother didn't like that. She'd called me Gary cos it couldn't be shortened. Anyway, I've been gaz to various people at different times in my life, and right now I'm feeling like being gaz again. This time I'm gonna be gaz in lower case, though.
WHY LOWER CASE? It's an attempt to keep my ego under control. It'll never work . . .
YOU GOT AN EGO PROBLEM? Doesn't everyone? It doesn't make me better than anyone else, though. Aren't you gonna ask about the damned book?
HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO WRITE the bartender's GIN compendium?
About two years, if memory serves, though I took a few months off to compile the Flip N Drink iApp. Here's how it went down:
I was trying to clean up my computer to make it easier for me to find stuff, and I noticed that I had lots of material about gin. I like gin. I thought, wait a minute, I bet if I did a lot of copying and pasting I'd have a book in no time at all. That's not how the book came together, though. I started to do more research and one thing led to another, and before I knew it two years had passed. Books have a long gestation period, you know.
HOW COME GIN IS SO HOT RIGHT NOW?
A few reasons, I think. Consumers have finally realized that gin is flavored vodka. But it's flavored vodka for grown ups. Sophisticated flavored vodka for people who actually have a palate. Add that to the fact that there are lots of new gin producers--Aviation, G'Vine, Right gin, to name just a few (three, actually)--who are bringing out new styles of gin, commonly known as New Western Dry gins.
The big boys are bringing us new gins, too. Beefeater 24, Tanqueray Rangpur, then there's Hendrick's--one of the first new-style gins, and Right gin, but that one's pretty new. I could go on and on.
WHAT ARE NEW WESTERN DRY GINS?
Ryan Magarian, one of the producers of Aviation gin, wrote a definition for me (it’s in the book):
New Western Dry Gin by Ryan Magarian, April, 2009
This designation seems to have evolved over the past nine years, as a result of efforts from both large brand houses and regional distillers in Europe and in the United States. In taking a good hard look at today’s rather loose definition of dry gin, these distillers realized a greater opportunity for artistic “flavor” freedom in this great spirit and are creating gins with a shift away from the usually overabundant focus on juniper, to the supporting botanicals, allowing them to almost share center stage. And while the juniper must remain dominant in all dry gins these gins are most certainly defined, not by the juniper itself, but by the careful inclusion and balance of the supporting flavors, creating, what many experts believe to be, an entirely new designation of dry gin that deserves individual recognition.
HOW MANY STYLES OF GIN ARE THERE?
Four. dry gin, genever, Old Tom, and Plymouth.
Dry gin can be broken into 4 styles: Compound gin, made by adding oils and essences to vodka; distilled dry gin, made by re-distilling vodka with various botanicals, juniper among them, New Western Dry gin, as described above, and London Dry gin.
WHAT'S LONDON DRY GIN?
It's just been re-defined by the European Union. Here's an excerpt from the book that will, hopefully, explain.
“The powers that be in the European Community saw fit, in 2008, to redefine gin, and they didn’t do a bad job of it, but they weren’t bloody wizards when it came to gin, either. You can find these regulations in the Various Rules and Regulations Surrounding Gin Production chapter at the end of this book if you’d like to pore through them, but right now I think it’s necessary to point out one aspect of these mandated guidelines that threw a spanner in the works when it comes to that beautiful style of gin that we’ve lovingly known as London Dry Gin for over a century.
“London Dry Gin, as a category, probably needed some tightening up, since it used to refer to any distilled gin that was made “in the style of” London Dry—a pretty vague definition. But that’s no longer true, and one of the aspects of these new regulations has made it necessary for some gins to take the word “London” off their labels. Since these new regulations went into effect, you see, in order to use the phrase “London Dry,” the gin must be made by having all its botanicals distilled into it in one fell swoop--and that’s not easy. Let me explain.
“The temperature at which gin distillers run their stills makes a massive difference to the end product, mainly because, in lay-terms, some botanicals release their flavors better at different temperatures than others. It might be desirable, therefore, to distill the botanicals separately, each one at the appropriate temperature, and then marry the resultant distillates to make gin. Or perhaps the botanicals can be distilled in, say, three different batches, each at a different temperature, before the three “flavored vodkas” are united in a gin bottle.
“This sort of stuff can make quite a huge difference to the finished product, and this is the reason that, in my humble opinion, the people who make London Dry Gin are bloody geniuses. Why? Because they can combine all their ingredients at a certain ratio, distill them out at one very specific temperature, and achieve a perfect balance in their gins. That’s one very hard job to do. Very hard. I can’t stress this enough.
“The people who make distilled dry gins that can no longer be called “London” are bloody geniuses, too. Many of these guys have been making gin using their own methodology, and employing more than one distillation—something that’s not uncommon in the gin industry—for many years, and until recently they have legally been able to use the term “London Dry” on their labels. If they change their methods now, their gin won’t taste the same. Knowing how to distill different botanicals at different temperatures is one of the mind-boggling nuances of the master distiller’s craft. Knowing how to distill a bunch of botanicals in one fell swoop is another.”
AND GENEVER?
Time for another excerpt
“Genever Defined. Sort of . . .
“There are quite a few styles of genever, but it’s fairly safe to say that in order to make this style of gin, a mash of grains (basically beer) is distilled into a whisky-like spirit known as malt wine. The malt wine is then married to another spirit that’s essentially a dry gin, made by distilling botanicals, including juniper, into neutral grain spirits. The percentage of malt wine in any bottling of genever will drastically alter the flavor of the spirit, of course, and if genever is aged, then this, too, has an effect on the product.
“Author David Wondrich’s formula for approximating genever by marrying 10 parts Jameson’s Irish whiskey to eight parts Plymouth gin, and adding a little simple syrup (made with demerara sugar), should serve to give you an idea of the basic flavor profile of genevers.”
SO I GUESS YOU'RE GOING TO DEFINE OLD TOM FOR US?
Mais, oui. This one's real tricky, though. I go into great detail about this in the book--it's fun stuff, too--but here's what I end up with:
“Old Tom Defined. Kind of . . .
“Old Tom was probably a euphemism for gin in the 1700s, and at some point in the early 1800s, when distillers started adding sugar to their gins, probably to disguise their badly made spirits, Old Tom became a term that used to describe sweetened gins. These gins could have been genever, or genever-style gins that might have been aged, or could have spent time in wood when they were transported, thus getting just a little age on them. By the end of the 1800s it’s more than likely that most bottlings of Old Tom gin were sweetened dry gins, and at the time of writing—summer, 2009—to the best of my knowledge Old Tom is represented by the two bottlings, Haymans, a sweetened dry gin, and Ransom., and Old Tom in the style of a slightly aged genever-style gin.”
AND LET'S ROUND IT OUT WITH PLYMOUTH
Okay
“Plymouth Gin Defined
“In defining Plymouth gin as a category, it’s possible only to say that Plymouth is a gin that’s made in Plymouth. Reason being that is that there is but the one gin made in Plymouth, so it’s impossible to define characteristics that apply to “all gins” made in this English port town. That said, we can say that Plymouth gin has less juniper up front than traditional London Dry gins, and because more sweet root botanicals and fewer bitter botanicals are used in its production, Plymouth gin certainly has a style all its own. Call it a somewhat gentler gin than London Dry, but a gin with tons of character all the same. And strangely enough, because of the newly-written E.U. regulations that define styles of gin, Plymouth gin could legally be called a London Dry gin, since all the botanicals are distilled into the gin in one fell swoop. The powers that be at Coates’ Plymouth Gin don’t want that, though. And we don’t blame them.”
WHEN DID YOU FIRST GET INTO GIN?
I had my first drink of gin when I was 12 years old--the story is in the book--but it wasn't until the 70s, when I was tending bar at Drake's Drum in Manhattan, that I became a gin drinker. I drank Gin with a splash of tonic, mainly.
WHAT ARE THESE "FLASHBACKS" I SEE IN THE CONTENTS OF THE BOOK?
Bar stories. Stories about stuff that went down in various joints where I've worked over the years. Bombay Sapphire reminds me of the North Star Pub, for instance. Beefeater reminds me of Drake's Drum, when I see a bottle of Tanqueray I think or organized chaos, a series of events I did at Painter's, my local joint in the Hudson Valley, and Hendrick's gin makes me think of dancing with the Statue of Liberty.
DANCING WITH THE STATUE OF LIBERTY?
Buy the book.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE GIN
Depends what cocktail I'm drinking.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE GIN COCKTAIL?
East Ender
recipe by gaz regan (though it’s really a Sweet Martini, circa 1900)
90 ml (3 oz) dry gin
30 ml (1 oz) sweet vermouth
5 dashes Angostura bitters
1 flamed (optional) orange twist, as garnish
Build in an ice-filled old-fashioned glass, stir briefly, and add the garnish.
HAS DAVE WONDRICH BOUGHT YOU A DRINK YET?
Don't get me started.