to think posh gin is a scam

[pisacake]

Basically it's industrial ethanol with flavourings. It's not like cognac or something where you potentially start with a good wine and distil it. It is literally just a flavoured, diluted ethanol.

So the production cost could vary perhaps £1 or £2 at most between the cheapest Asda Smart Price and the super-duper-deluxe.

And blind taste tests repeatedly pick the cheapo ones.

metro.co.uk/2017/07/27/aldis-10-gin-declared-one-of-best-in-world-by-experts-6811653/

Just marketing.

I have tried all of the supermarket type gins. Tanquerry, Gordons, currently on a bottle of bloom, bombay sapphire, a few others.

I prefer the Aldi one to all of them with Tanquerry a close second. Have had the odd posh gin cocktail out and havent had my socks blown off by any.

Don't know about the high end/small batch gins though as I don't think I have tried them and couldnt bring myself to.spend £40 on a bottle.

If anyone wants me to make a definitive decision tho am available for taste testing. Pm me for an address

Martin Millers is another mass produced and not very expensive one.
There were no craft or unusual gins in the test.

But it doesn';t matter how much something costs or how exclusive it is: just drink what you like, and if that is Sainsburys basics gin or the most expensive hand made shit in the world, it doesn't matter as long as you like it.

OP's basic premise is flawed and her understanding of the market wrong anyway.

I love Bombay Sapphire. Its not shit.

note the evaluation comments in this article

It has a lovely fragrant taste from "a recipe of ten ingredients: almond, lemon peel, liquorice, juniper berries, orris root, angelica, coriander, cassia, cubeb, and grains of paradise. Alcohol bought in from another supplier is evaporated three times using a carterhead still, and the alcohol vapours are passed through a mesh/basket containing the ten botanicals, in order to gain flavour and aroma. This is felt to give the gin a lighter, more floral taste compared to those gins that are created using a copper pot still"

I wont be trying cheap gin any time soon

That's the point, I don't like it so to me, its shit. But if you like it (and many do) then its not shit to you.

It is fairly cheap though, as gin goes.

I like the Bombay East more though, have you tried that? Or Bombay Star, the premium one?

Edinburgh Gin is fab and I don't like gin at all. Rhubard and Ginger is the current favourite. I'm quite partial to the Raspberry one and can't wait to try Vanilla and Plum. Yummy!

Before the Gin 'explosion' my favourite has always been Bombay Sapphire so I guess with the sudden variety on offer I'm going to like something similar to that. I find the Aldi Topaz Blue very acceptable as a cheaper version if I can't get my Bombay on a special.

I do like Rock Rose by Edinburgh Gin although it is a much more delicate and fragrant choice than my usual!

I find Tanquaray to dry for my taste.

Happy tasting folks!

Warner Edwards is yummy. Their rhubarb gin with bitter lemon is simply devine

"My favourite gin does not use any kind of industrial ethanol, I can assure you. It uses locally distilled small batch whey alcohol from Irish cows."

Taps sarcasm detector. Nope, still not sure if you're taking the piss out of gin ponces or if this is serious.

YABVU gin varies hugely between regions, distilleries and processes. If you don't like gin to start with you won't be able to taste the difference, but there most definitely is one between the variety of gins available to the average consumer.

We make gin! We are a very very small producer and we use tiny equipment compared to big or even medium sized producers. Even then it cost us many thousands. We also make our own base spirit from local produce which takes a lot of effort. Our botanicals have be sourced from around the world sometimes at great cost and it took 2 years of testing to get the flavour we wanted. Clearly it costs more to produce than the big alcohol houses.

Remember that 60% of the cost of gin is tax. Once you add on the sellers profit and cost of people bottles labels and ingredients we are left with around 10% of the sales cost as profit.

Interestingly Gordon's is seen as one of he best gins in the world. It is certainly not seen as a crap gin at all and I adore it. We have around 40 gins i our house and it's my go to for a great G&T. All the others have different flavours and features and I choose others depending on my mood.

Crap tonic depresses me though. Tonic changes the oil composition in the sprit and enhances its flavour and most on sale in the UK are awful.

I presume you are referring to this:

ballyvolanespirits.ie/our-spirits/

Lots of nice marketing.

"Using whey alcohol from the local dairy farmers here in Cork, together with our own natural well water and an interesting mix of locally foraged and grown botanicals, we have hand-crafted a gin that highlights the character of Bertha in her prime."

The reality:

www.eveningecho.ie/corknews/Holy-cow-Its-gold-medal-for-Cork-gin-3434c245-4812-44c3-b733-bbc17dc1f484-ds

"Produced by close friends Justin Green and Anthony Jackson, who have known each other since they were 13 years-old, the gin is distilled using whey alcohol that comes from a dairy farm in Carbery."

www.liquidirish.com/2012/05/whey-alcohol.html

"It was an Irish company that first figured out how to make potable alcohol commercially from whey: Carbery, in Cork. Carbery is a dairy ingredients company which, in the 1970s, happened to be owned by Grand Metropolitan.
...
As far as I can make out, fermentation is preceded by ultrafiltration to remove the whey proteins (a useful product in its own right) and reverse osmosis to eliminate much of the water. By this means, the concentration of lactose is increased. After fermentation, a wash of about 3.5% ethanol is obtained which is then distilled to 96% ABV, the maximum achievable in a column still.

That's going a little further than allowed under whiskey rules, where the maximum is 94.8%, in order to ensure some flavour from the original grain remains. I'm not sure, then, whether there is any trace of whey flavour left at this point. Doubtless for some applications the closer to neutral alcohol the better. But I'll revisit this point in another article.

The venture was entirely successful and the "Carbery process" was subsequently licensed to plants in the US and New Zealand.
...
Whatever was the case in the distant past, we are certainly turning whey into spirits in huge quantities today. Carbery is pumping out close to 10m litres of ethanol per year. Some of that is for quaffing, some is further refined to 99.9% ABV and added to Maxol petrol.
"

So it's, er, petrol! It's fucking petrol and they market the hell out of it that it's some sort of premium product. As far as I can see, whey alcohol has NEVER been regarded as a premium product.

I mean I'm sure it's probably fine, it's just shows that it is literally just industrial alcohol with flavourings, and not some mystical product from Daisy the cow.

Naked what is the best tonic?
Personal favourite is fevertree naturally light,however there are many I have not tested.

FFS alcohol can be used as a petrol additive, petrol can't be used as a gin additive.

Bio-ethanol is petrol. Bio-ethanol is a precursor to gin.

It's nothing very poetic.

I'm not in UK but yes Fevertree is ok but it has too many botanicals in it for me which I think clash with some gins. Excellent branding though which is half the battle won. I'm going to be controversial but errr... Schweppes for me is the best! Classic flavour and just quinine, water sugar and air!

UK schweppes has sodium saccharin

I just got a bottle of Rives pink gin in Gibraltar for £7 misses point of thread and slinks off to finish cocktail

Gordon's is rank and Aldi's version is better but still awful. Aldi in Scotland sell Eden mill small batch gin especially made for them and it is yum. Valentia and Ophire gin are pretty much the dogs bollocks (pardon my French). Eden Mill Edinburgh and Isley botanical gin are also awesome. Don't always have your gun with tonic sometimes it's the tonic that puts you off. Rose lemonade or ginger ale are also great. Yum I had a gin tonight 😜

I rarely drink, but I do love the occasional gin. Isle of Harris is my current favourite, but the new Barra Atlantic gin has just become available and that looks promising too.
At the rate I drink it, no gin is expensive (I expect my current bottle to last about 4 years!) and I don't care if the twisty blue bottle is a big part of the price. It's as much about the luxury and the clearing time at the end of the day as it is about the actual drink.

I went to a gin festival where I learnt that a lot of people make really revolting gin, tonic water masks the taste of it anyway and that really, I'm quite happy with a nice Gordon's, Schweppes and ice and a slice

If I'm going to pay a lot of money for alcohol I'll buy whiskey, which you don't dilute with a shedload of strongly flavoured mixer. Premium gins are the emporers new clothes imo. I'll be really happy when the craze dies out and I can buy a g&t again for less than a fiver!

Bio-ethanol is petrol really

No no Bolshybookworm good gin should be nice when tasted straight and should at most be 50/50 with mixer of choice if you can't taste the gin your doing it wrong.

Oooh Bertha's Revenge is amazing, really does taste very smooth. I'm not a fan of potato-based gins though, I can smell it and it really puts me off. Too much time spent drinking cheap vodka in my youth!

I am also in the craft gin club, some are misses but more are hits for me. This years' March gin was my favourite of all time but it's another Irish one, Gunpowder gin.

You know, with the way that alcohol is priced and taxed, it's actually about 15% cheaper to buy Irish gin imported to the UK than it is to buy it locally in Ireland. I tried to get some Bertha's Revenge for my SIL and it's like €50 a bottle - I paid £32 online for it from a reputable store in the UK. With the euro almost at parity it's a no-brainer to just buy alcohol in the airport...

Another vote for Edinburgh gin, though I prefer the proper gin to the flavoured gin liqueurs. The "valentine" edition is my top favourite. The tour is really good too, as is the Eden mill tour.

Interesting range of views on here. I love a dry martini and have loved the explosion of new gin bars. Bombay and Hendricks are the best of the regular in my opinion. Monkey and bathtub are very nice, out of of the craft that I can actually remember. There is a very strong Plymouth that is about 50-60% and was the original strength of the one they sold to the sailors. I really like that too. Much prefer fever tree over Schweppes for mixers though.