I really like a gin rickey on a hot day. We’ve discussed this in the past. And since it has been extremely hot so far this summer, I was looking for something that might allow me to have all the deliciousness of a gin rickey without drinking quite so much of the…gin. Just because it is hot out doesn’t necessarily mean I want to wake up the next morning with a hangover.
So as I was wandering through the aisles of my local grocery store, I noticed a line of non-alcoholic spirit alternatives in among the mixers. Now I’ve tried rum and whiskey alternatives before, and none of them were even close to the real thing. Most tasted like they were made by someone who had actually never tried the spirits. But I had a thought that maybe gin might be different. It isn’t barrel aged, so you wouldn’t need to try to figure out how to mimic that. And it’s flavored with botanicals. My theory was that you could do that by making a tea. I just never got around to doing it myself.
This means that when I saw the Clean G Gin Alternative on the shelf, I decided to save myself the effort of recipe creation and try it instead. Let’s see what the company has to say about its product before I tell you my thoughts:
Our take on a traditional London Dry Gin, Clean G features a crisp flavor with notes of balanced botanicals. That's because we carefully source and distill aromatic botanicals, like real juniper, to create a non-alcoholic spirit with a very fine finish.
Thoughts: Boy, am I ever disappointed in this. On its own, it tastes like 7-up that has gone flat. I get no hint of juniper, just a delicate citrus note. Definitely not making a martini with this thing. So I tried it in my favorite, the Gin Rickey. My Rickey was good. It just didn’t taste like gin. It tasted like fizzy water with lime in it (I might need to try just lime and soda more often, though, because it was delicious). After that, I tried a gimlet. Basically, limeade, sweetened and diluted lime juice. Finally, I decided to see how it held up in a low-alcohol cocktail by making a Negroni with the Clean G, Campari, and Vermouth. It tasted very flat. No vibrancy at all. The flavors of the liqueurs were present and tasty, but the “gin” just didn’t add anything to it.
Overall, for as much hope as I had for this, it just isn’t doing it for me. The one flavor I expect from Gin is Juniper. And this had none of that. I even tried infusing it with my own juniper berries to see if I could boost that flavor, to no avail. This is a pretty bottle. But it’s also $32 down the drain. If any of you know of a gin alternative that actually tastes like gin or even a nice juniper bitters, let me know. Otherwise, I think I’ll stick with lime and soda when I want a non-alcoholic rickey.
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