opinionated alchemist

The pink wave is approaching us and probably will overrun us all... at least this is my current feeling, when I see, what kind of new products are approaching and which products are hitting the trend-lists. First there was the Cosmopolitan - then after a long hiatus of pink highly popular beverages, rosé wine started its incredible victory run. The frozé has been a wine based drink, which really pushed pink further. And now we are at pink gin. This is an obvious combination of "pink" and another current hyper trend: gin. Gordon's, one of the biggest volume producer of gin (but in my eyes, maybe not one of the outstanding ones),  didn't wanted to stay behind - and also developed a pinkish gin. How is it? It is sweet, it is pink, it smells like strawberries and taste like a berry-fruit bouquet. There are for sure some juniper and other spice notes, which are coming through. Yet the beverage is not very complex. Which might be ok, for the target clientele?! M...

Another new drink, to be featured in Blue Jade - the amazing Pan Asian restaurant in the Ritz Carlton Dubai... The Gin 'n Tonic is one very popular drink in Dubai. Yeah - here are a lot of Brits. But it is also a really great drink - and it defies very much the heat! For Blue Jade I wanted to break with the normal highball procedure, and really wanted to shake a drink up. As I reviewed East Imperial before, and titled it "not a lazy bartender tonic", I thought it will work as ingredients far better than any other tonic. It has some medium sweetness - however no acidity, which we will anyway apply with some fresh citrus juice... There is some muddled lemongrass [yeah - I don't usually like to muddle, but lemongrass just usually taste not that great, if used differently] - but the game changer is here the house crafted pandan syrup. It just brings the whole G&T into the East! The Jade Gin 'n Tonic We didn't only called it Jade G and T because of...

Yeah - I know - just another tonic water review??? Yes- but the friendly guys from TopShelf Beverages met me in the hotel, and left me a couple of samples - one was 1724 [which was basically why we met]. Anyway... previously I have reviewed the Fentiman's here and here  - the outcome was, that it was different - lemongrass'y.  Then I have reviewed East Imperial here . Oh wow - this was even more different. The friendly guys at East Imperial also contacted me, and informed me, that a bold, but more conservative [speak sweet-sour] variant is coming soon. Looking forward to it! But again - East imperial was different - root'y and very unique, indeed. And now we have got 1724. I spare you again the story. I am not working for the marketing department of any soft drink firm - and I guess, they can do best, to explain the origin, story and other marketing b.s. [no offence!]. You can find it here . And again - 1724 is since a quite short time available in Dubai - whoop...

This might be the tonic water you might not find directly. To be honest, I haven't heard of it before. When Florence from our supplier Classic Fine Foods asked me for a meeting, she made quite a mystery about the product, she wanted to let me try. We sat down and I tried - first of all neat - and than with gin [and ice]. I will spare, to bombard you with another story [which might or might not be created in a marketing department ]. But you want to know how it fares? The Presentation: This is just wow. The label coloured in a purple with silver fonts, is just beautiful. The funny thing is, that it comes also in very small bottles - 150 ml. But while the 125 ml of Fentiman's is really too short, the 150 ml seems really to work much better! Kudos to them - they really might have thought about it! However I still would prefer a bottle which is around 180 ml - I love my G&T double - and for a double, 150 ml might just be not enough! Neat: This tonic water seems dir...