Gin Trivia! Part 4

As seen here earlier, Kerry Greene and I put together a trivia quiz all about gin last year. Here are the next few questions, along with my discussion of the answers. As before, I've obscured the answers by putting them in white text on a white background; just highlight the area between the brackets to see what's there, and click on smaller pictures to embiggen them.

10.    Snoop Dogg famously drank gin & juice in the 1994 song. Name both brands of gin namechecked in this (NSFW, of course) excerpt.

Gin & Juice (redacted)

[Seagram's, Tanqueray]

The success of “Gin and Juice” reportedly led to a roughly 20% increase in the sales of [Seagram’s Gin]. In the words of tha D-O-double-G himself, “Gin is upper echelon. It's a step up. Because you just don't find — and no disrespect — regular winos just drinking [Tanqueray].” And Snoop did end up with a jobby job as a brand rep for [Tanqueray] Ten, and mixed up an enormous gin & juice with 180 bottles of Hendrick’s a couple years ago.

11.    Think fast! What gin-based liqueur is traditionally made by steeping the tart plumlike fruit of the wild blackthorn shrub in gin with sugar?

[Sloe gin]

There used to be so many crappy artificially flavored, cloying [sloe gins] out there, but good ones are thankfully easier and easier to find. Or, you can make your own! Damson gin is very similar and good as well.

You could do like the narrator in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and use it as a dessert topping:

I’d like to hear five recordings of Louis Armstrong playing and singing ‘What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue’ – all at the same time. Sometimes now I listen to Louis while I have my favorite dessert of vanilla ice cream and [sloe gin]. I pour the red liquid over the white mound, watching it glisten and the vapor rising as Louis bends that military instrument into a beam of lyrical sound. Perhaps I like Louis Armstrong because he’s made poetry out of being invisible.

 

12.    Gin from a certain town in England carried a geographical appellation — similar to Scotch whisky or Cognac brandy — until 2015. Only one brand of gin is made there now, and it's a unique style, distinct from the more common London Dry. This earthy, versatile gin has long been the tipple of choice for Royal Navy officers. It's named after the town in which it's produced; what gin am I describing?

 

[Plymouth Gin]

 

[Plymouth Gin] is great and very versatile for mixing. (The most recent drink I had was a [Plymouth] Martini, on the wet side, with orange bitters and a twist. Yum.) As The Gin Is In notes above, maintaining their geographical appellation for [Plymouth] would have meant that brand owner Pernod Ricard would have to disclose the exact recipe, so they decided to drop the appellation instead. Here are more details on [Plymouth]’s history and distillery.