Research notes: Gin vs. Gin

Ensslin was doubtless a fantastic barman, but his book opens the door for all manner of confusionism. There are slight errors throughout--the book is nominally in alphabetical order within each section, but there are plenty of failures to keep things in order.

There are also--and this is more of a problem--a number of cases in which the ingredients are less than strictly clear, because they are not labelled consistently. Gin, perhaps the most-used spirit in the book, is a particular bit of trickiness. We have references to gin, dry gin, Old Tom Gin, El Bart Gin, English gin, Holland gin, and possibly others I haven't spotted. So. What's it all mean?

Holland gin, at least, I assumed to be a separate spirit, which is correct. It is, by reputation, sweeter than the (here) more prevalent London dry. I hope I'll be able to find a bottle. Initially I assumed that both Old Tom and El Bart were particular makes that Ensslin wanted to suggest.

Old Tom, though, is a style of gin, not a particular product. It is sweeter than dry gin and but drier than Holland gin, and I suspect the most difficult to come by of the three. Difford's includes a small number of drinks that call for Old Tom gin, but Difford never does me the favor of specifying a brand of Old Tom that I might be able to buy. Of course, Difford is based in the UK so he probably has far more gin choices readily available than I.

This still doesn't account for all of Ensslin's notes, though. On page 16 is the Fifty-Fifty cocktail, half "dry gin" and half "French vermouth." (Ensslin uses "French" to designate dry vermouth.) On page 17 is the Gibson cocktail, half "gin" and half "French vermouth."

So what am I supposed to do about that, Hugo Ensslin? Either "dry gin" and "gin" aren't the same thing, or Ensslin is padding out his book with multiple names for the same drink. Or, it's a simple editing error, in which case I'm pretty much out of luck.

The Gibson is widely used today to refer to a subtle martini variant--a martini with cocktail onions instead of olives. Assuming that Ensslin's Gibson has some connection to what we now think of as the Gibson, I have a hard time imagining that the gin in his Gibson ought to be anything other than dry.

Hence, I can only assume that these cocktails were offered different names by Ensslin because he says that the Fifty-Fifty is to be stirred, and then Gibson is to be shaken. Truly, we are dealing with a sophisticated science if that subtle a variation is enough to distinguish two drinks from each other.

For now, I'm going to deal with this by assuming that there are three kinds of gin that Hugo wanted me to use--London dry, Old Tom, and Holland. Anytime Old Tom or Holland are not listed, I'm going to assume any reasonably nice London dry will be acceptable. I'll hold off on the recipes that call for Old Tom for now, until I either find a bottle, or decide that it's too difficult to come by.