Thank you everyone who was there last night. We seem to have accumulated loads of alcohol! To whit:

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I have somewhere a document containing a tasting guide of all kinds of gin to be had on sale here. It is an incomplete project for several reasons.

There are just lots of kinds of Gin to try. Leaving aside store brands from Tesco, Sainsburys and Waitrose that we somehow have not got around to trying, there are lots of obscure kinds of gin. Who has had Brokers Gin? Old Tom? Junipero?

Another reason is that many gins are nothing to write home about. What can you say about Greenall's gin besides "Mild, inoffensive. Gin."

But there are two gins that we are drinking tonight that are worth a mention.

Firstly, neeman, visiting from the Republic of Ireland brought us a bottle of Cork Crimson, which is apparently quite common there. I've never seen it here, even in speciality shops.

The taste is to me is more oily and bitter, with only a slight sweet note, but nicely spicy. It is rather pleasant when balanced with tonic and lime. It is better than Gordon's any day. short_mort found it nice, on a par with Bombay Sapphire. In summary, a pleasant gin.

Secondly, we found a bottle of Witley Neill Gin. This had my interest since it contains two Southern African ingredients along with the Juniper and other usual botanicals.

It contains extracts from the fruit of the baobab tree, which I am not familiar with as a food. It also contains flavour from the kind of Physalis fruit commonly known as Cape Gooseberry, or as we used to call them in the Cape, Gooseberries.

This is a London Dry Gin, meaning that
1) It's Gin
2) It's not sweet
3) It's made in London. (apparently it doesn't have to be - unlike "Plymouth Gin", "London Dry Gin" is not a Protected Geographical Indication if Wikipedia is to be believed).

The address given on the bottle is in Wimbledon, an area so full of South Africans that it's sometimes referred to as Wimbledorp. The website references Johnny Neill's "wife's homeland in Africa" which explains the connection.

We will buy this gin again. It has interesting, complex woody, citrusy tastes. Obviously it makes a good gin and tonic. Like Hendricks with the cucumber, they recommend using a Cape Gooseberry instead of a lime in your gin and tonic. This was also nice, but I wanted a slice of lime as well. With that, it was awesome.

Here's my recipe:

Take a half-pint glass. Put into it:
Three ice cubes (actually 2-3 depending on how big your ice cubes are and personal taste)
Half a slice of lime
Two cape Gooseberries. Before you put them in, cut almost all of the way through them, and again at right angles, so they would be quartered if they weren't held together at the base. Give one a good squeeze so that the juice starts to ooze out.
Pour a double shot of Whitley Neill Gin over this.
Fill the glass up with a decent (aspartame-free) Tonic.

Now this is what we should have been drinking while watching the sun set over the Kruger game park in Africa!