Eric's Photo-blog: 2009

What's your favorite gin? Are you sure? Is it that you like the flavor, or are you influenced by the name and the mystique?

To find out, we conducted a double-blind gin tasting experiment. In a double-blind tasting experiment, neither the subject nor the experimenter knows what is being tasted. In our case, each gin was transferred into identical bottles labeled A through F. Then a second person replaced the letter labels with new labels, each with a code-name--the title of a James Bond film. The first person knew which gin corresponded to which letter. The second person knew which letter corresponded to which code-name. This two-key code could only be solved when the two labelers compared notes, which was only done at the end of the tasting.

The 11 of us tested 6 gins. From most to least expensive: Hendrick's, Tanqueray 10, Bombay Sapphire, Blue Coat, Tanqueray, and Gordon's. The gin was served cold from the freezer in roughly 1/4 oz servings. We did three heats, each comparing two gins head-to-head. The one with the most votes from each heat moved on to the finale. In the finale, we each voted for our favorite and second favorite of the three gins. In a true scientific study, there would have been no discussion. That would have been more accurate, but not nearly as much fun. We discussed all the gins as we tasted them.

In the first heat, Thunderball beat out Casino Royale. Both were noted for their strong juniper flavor. It turns out that Casino Royale was Tanqueray, so one of the traditional favorites was out of the running right from the start.

The second heat saw Dr. No trounce Goldfinger. Goldfinger was Hendrick's, a high-end Scottish gin, often considered one of the best in the World. I had had it before and didn't really care for it, but wanted to include it in the competition for its unusual cucumber flavor. In the third heat, Moonraker stood out immediately as something different, with Golden Eye (Bluecoat) falling by the wayside. Most of the comments for Moonraker noted it as having noticeably less juniper flavor, but with an appealing smoothness.

The finale was the closest decision of the night. Dr. No lived up to its name, receiving no first place votes, clearly the loser of the three. It did have 5 second place votes though. The group then split into two camps--7 of us preferring the smoothness of Moonraker, 4 of us preferring the stronger juniper flavor of Thunderball. Those of us who preferred Thunderball, still liked Moonraker though. It received first or second place votes from all but one tester.

Now for the moment of truth, the code-keys were reviewed and the winners were revealed. Dr. No in third was Sapphire. In second was Thunderball, Tanqueray 10. So the winner, amongst all these high-end gins was none other than Gordon's, the least expensive of the lot!!!

This was a pretty mind-blowing result. I've always been a T10 drinker, and although I did select that as my second favorite, it was blown away by a gin costing about a third as much. I'm not sure whether this means that Gordon's is a better gin, or whether as a group, we really don't like gin. Gordon's definitely stood out for having less gin flavor than the others. It's interesting that Sapphire and T10 both made it easily to the finale. So, maybe

there is still something to this high-end gin thing after all.

In some less rigorous testing (everyone already having had the equivalent of a martini or two by this point), Tanqueray was selected as making the best Gin and Tonic, the powerful juniper taste being mellowed nicely by the tonic.

By the way, which gin did 007 himself prefer??? From Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale published in 1953:

....he looked carefully at the barman.

'A dry martini,' he said. 'One. In a deep champagne goblet.'

'Oui, monsieur.'

'Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?'

'Certainly, monsieur.'

I did read Casino Royale when I was 13 or so. Could this have unconciously influenced the results? Are the results invalidated? Maybe we should have picked a different theme for the code names??? This definitely calls for further investigation, anyone interested?