Making a gin & tonic is easy, right?
Get some good gin, add some tonic, maybe some ice and lime/lemon/grapefruit/some wacky alternative, combine in a glass/plastic cup/shoe/bread roll and Bob’s your uncle.
Except Bob isn’t your uncle any more. He’s changed his name to Heston and he’s started turning chicken into mandarins and bacon into ice cream, and now he’s fucking with your G&T recipe.
To translate, Heston Blumenthal, he of The Fat Duck and Dinner by Heston fame, has laid down the law when it comes to making a gin & tonic that’s not just good, but ‘right’ too.
First off, you’ll need to bin off the black pepper, cucumber or anything that isn’t citrus, according to the chef, but which fruit you use will depend on the flavour profile of the other ingredients.
“The type of citrus you use depends on the type of gin and its particular botanicals,” he told the Daily Mail.
“It’s worth experimenting with different gins, tonics and pieces of citrus fruit to see which go best together.”
You probably thought the choice of glass was no big deal, too. Wrong again, stupid.
As all good chefs called Heston will attest, you need a wide-rimmed glass for aromatic gins. Well, obviously.
(NB. I’ve asked around the office and no one else knew this, so you’re forgiven).
But the most important thing, the one that you really need to get right, is the order of ingredients.
Just as you need to put the milk in a cup of tea after the teabag – shut up, this is fact and if you do otherwise you’re a deviant – there’s a very specific order to guarantee the ideal G&T.
That order, of course, is gin > citrus > ice > tonic. Allow Hesty B to explain:
“This order of assembly will allow the effervescense of the tonic to mix all of the flavours together without much stirring”.
Problem solved.
(Images: iStock)
