Welcome to an introduction to the art of evaluating gin. Here, we’ll emphasise the importance of distinguishing between the craftsmanship of gin and personal preferences.
The intent of this article is to guide enthusiasts, bartenders, buyers, and potential judges through the critical aspects of gin assessment, including flavour cohesion, intensity, sequencing, and spirit integration.
It will highlight how subjective sensitivities and personal tastes interplay with objective evaluations, making the appreciation of gin a uniquely personal experience.
Here we go…
Evaluating gin objectively
In the realm of gin, quality can be objectively judged in several ways compared to other spirits. Namely, the flavours are often literal. There’s actual ingredients causing a flavour profile – not just something creating the semblance of something! This means there is often a right and wrong answer to what you are tasting.
Other factors that come into play are flavour cohesion, flavour intensity, flavour sequencing and spirit integration. All are worth tuning into when you want to evaluate a gin.
Flavour cohesion
The magic behind gin’s profile is rooted in the compatible mingling of various botanicals. How do they combine together? We call this harmony and botanical interplay flavour cohesion. The simple question to ask is if every ingredient sings in tune with the others.
Just like the members of a choir raising their voices in unison, the botanicals in gin come together to create a unique flavour harmony. None of them should be out of sync or out of place – pushing the flavour off kilter. There should be balance and it should feature juniper with specific clarity.
Flavour intensity
A harmony can easily fall into discord without the second metric; Flavour intensity.
Think of it as the volume — or dosage — of each botanical. When made well a gin should neither be overwhelmingly loud, nor easily lost at the slightest thought of being added to a mixer.
Dialling in the overall intensity of the experience is often forgotten about by drinkers, but it’s something distillers work hard to achieve.
Flavour sequencing
Gin is more than just a singular taste experience.
It’s a journey, an exploration of flavours that progress with each sip. No matter how pleasantly cohesive it is or how perfectly pitched the intensity of it all, it’s not enough to be considered an elite level gin unless there’s an evolution in the flavour over time. You can’t have a homogenous wall of flavour or a single-note profile.
It needs to have a sequence.
A well-sequenced gin starts with a tantalising top note, followed by a robust middle, and finishes with a satisfying, lingering endnote. When botanicals and recipes have been well considered, they allow for this to happen.
Spirit integration (and presentation)
When evaluating gin, other objective indicators of quality include the mouthfeel of a gin. While this might get lost in simple serves like the G&T, it’s a quality all gins need to have to make a good Martini.
Secondly, the integration of the base spirit and how that presents is something that can be judged. The base spirit should be smooth and without any harshness. Ideally, it should not be something you notice, unless for a positive reason.
The sum of these parts
If you can state that there is botanical clarity and balance centred around juniper, good intensity, a flavour journey / sequence and a rounded and well-integrated spirit – you have a well-crafted gin on your hands.
Those are all objective metrics to focus on when evaluating gin, and will help you build a structured approach to tasting and judging what’s in your glass.
Subjectivity can be useful!
Assessing gin isn’t exempt from subjectivity, nor should it be.
All of the above evaluations can be rationalised, but only to degree. The extent to which each person is sensitive to certain ingredients, profiles, ABV variations will be different.
Only some of it is conscious too. Many elite judges are hypersensitive to some elements through years of eating certain foods, living in certain places and being exposed to those kinds of flavours and aromas.
Sensitivities will depend on being smokers, pet owners, a person’s diet, lifestyle, cultural awareness and much more. Most are deeply ingrained personal associations that are completely idiosyncratic.
“If you can’t name it, you can’t taste it”. It’s a hyperbole, but it has some truth to it too…
Having never come across something before might make you hyper aware of its presence. But it may also have the opposite affect! You might be nose blind to it as your mind hooks onto aspects that it understands and it’s familiar with.
That’s why there are so many gins in the world – we can all agree on what makes a good gin in theory. In practice it is a sliding scale where each individual brings their own baggage to each and every sip.
Personal preference is different to subjective sensitivities
It’s important to recognise that appreciating a gin is different to either fully tasting every nuance or even liking it.
You might acknowledge that a gin is well made through using the objective metrics we’ve outlined above. You might be able to discern the full spectrum of botanicals included because your senses are sensitive and discerning enough. But subjectivity means you still not enjoy it.
Vis versa, there are fundamentally flawed gins from a critic’s perspective that are really enjoyable to drink. The same is true with music and cinema and that’s perfectly okay!
The world of gin is vast and varied. A big part of its charm lies in exploring this diversity to find the gins that resonate with your personal tastes. Don’t be a snob about it. Recognising this deeply personal aspect is vital to enjoying what the category has to offer, especially if you’re involved in the serving gins and bartending.
It allows you to evaluate a gin on its own merits, separate from whether it suits your individual palate. It helps you make a call on how best to form a recipe that will maximise its strong points. Moreover, it helps you look for positive things that can connect you to the to those you do like it – rather than judge them on their tastes.
Keep in mind the balance between objectivity, subjective experience and personal preference.
The inner snob in many drinkers wants to be able to both recognise and love the undisputed best quality gins around. Having tasted thousands, our advice is to focus your training and build your tasting system around objective evaluation, but accept that subjective interpretation is more nuanced and champion that.
You’ll get so much more joy out of the gin if you can compartmentalise the two and celebrate your individuality.
To go back to movies as an analogy – it’s no different to saying that you loved Starship Troopers and found The Irishman boring. The critics may disagree with you, but the box office doesn’t and isn’t it more fun watching the stuff you like and having your own opinion?!
Just like other art forms, gin has a set of objective metrics that explains why industry insiders fetishise certain brands. Those metrics are what separates the brands and the colour of their medals in competitions. But that doesn’t mean they are going to be popular nor commercially successful.
So there you have it – some insider tips on evaluating gin.
Seek to appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into every bottle. Hone your skills and take pride in a structured assessment. Then enjoy being weird about what you like and what you seek out.
The joy of gin lies in both the shared recognition of quality made products and the delightfully personal journey of discovery and ones own preferences!
