Pink liquor is usually derided as dismissably girly and not very good but it’s time that changed. Summer’s the time for light, fruity drinks, whether that’s a cocktail or a bottle of rosé. We’ve embraced millennial pink as a playfully unisex color — now it’s reached our drinks.
I tried three pink gins towards the budget end of the scale, though for the moneyed connoisseur there are a host of smaller artisanal stills putting out pink gins in every shade, from blush to magenta, flavored with berries, pomegranates and hibiscus.
Here are the three I tried, in my totally subjective but absolutely correct ranking, from most to least tasty:
GOLD: Beefeater Pink Gin
(€20-25 for 70cl, 37.5%, available in most supermarkets and off-licenses)
I like an assertive gin with strong dry aromatics, so I liked that I could tell that Beefeater’s offering was still gin beneath the fruit. It has a clear strawberry flavor but isn’t too sweet and doesn’t lose its bubblegum hue even with a mixer. I recommend serving it over ice with Fever-Tree Elderflower Tonic or Fentiman’s Rose Lemonade. Show-offs can garnish with sliced strawberries or pink peppercorns.
SILVER: Hortus Raspberry Gin Liqueur
(€15 for 50cl, 20%, available at Lidl)
Not a new product, but brought back by popular demand, Hortus Raspberry Gin Liqueur isn’t a fully-fledged gin like Beefeater. Instead it’s a deeply pink syrupy liqueur with a lower alcohol content and a lot more apparent sugar. The bottle doesn’t give many hints as to the nuances of flavor but the raspberry note is spot-on. The sort of people who drink Baileys straight might enjoy Hortus on the rocks; it works with Indian tonic and a squeeze of lime; or you could boost the alcohol and cut the sweetness by mixing it into sparkling white wine. Pick up a bottle of Treviso Prosecco (€7.99) while you’re at Lidl.
BRONZE: Gordon’s Pink Gin
(€20-25 for 70cl, 37.5%, available in most supermarkets and off-licenses)
Gordon’s marketing touts the strawberry, raspberry and redcurrant additions to their normal tasting notes of juniper and coriander. I can definitely taste the raspberry and the little zip of redcurrant, but not in a good way — less bounding through a sun-drenched summer garden, more being attacked at a department store perfume counter. The lingering raspberry and powerful florals are most palatable paired with mellowing lemon and sugar in a classic Tom Collins.
