The Spirits #81: Gin & Dubonnet
~ In memoriam ~
~ GIN & DUBONNET ~
50ml Dubonnet
25ml gin
Lemon
Make this one in a dainty wine glass. You will want copious ice, preferably one large cube. Add the eponymous ingredients and a slice of lemon. Stir. That’s it.
Some Gin & Dubonnet notes:
1) This is a break from the advertised programming, but I expect British audiences are used to that by now. But it’s a wonderful cocktail: restrained, refined and one for the ages, a little like a certain late Queen. The nation, I feel, deserves a drink tonight - and Elizabeth deserves a toast.
2) It is also known as a Zaza, apparently. It was the Queen Mother’s favourite aperitif and the dearly departed HRH’s too, according to various former Royal chefs. Although she was also partial to a nightly Gin Martini - good taste, right?
3) If any old time ingredient deserves a resurgence, it is Dubonnet. It falls into the family known as quinquinas; Byrrh and Lillet Rouge are the other most common examples. It’s not a million miles away from red (Italian) vermouth too, if you’re caught short.
4) What a presence Elizabeth II has been in all of our lives. It is hard to know precisely what we are without her. Perhaps we will all have to grow up now. Perhaps without this common thread, we fray. Perhaps we will quietly drift away from our moorings. Of all the tributes, I like this one by Rebecca Mead the best. It captures the ludicrousness of the institution, the magical thinking and cruelty required to sustain it, but also, the qualities of the human who has somehow kept it going these last 70 years - qualities we would all recognise in some of the best people we know.
She was by then not just a Queen but something more: a very old person who had lived a long time and seen a great deal, who commanded respect by the random chance of fortune but to whom respect was also granted because, having borne the weight of the crown for all those years, she had earned it.
Until next time.
Shopping list: Gin, cucumber, mint, rosewater, Angostura, lime, sugar.
💕