Finally lemon gin time

The time has finally arrived. It's been three years since we made the very first bottle of lemon gin. It has been agitated daily by Mr Z's car ever since. We did take it out in the summer for a little snifter but dutifully replaced it until last weekend, when we took it to the Parents Z for Sunday dinner and all had a taste.

When we got back, I pulled out the 2016 vintage to do a side by side comparison. This one has been in a cupboard, not a car, although it's replaced the first bottle in the Z car now.

The one on the right is the older one - considerably yellower. In a side by side taste test, the 2015 vintage is smoother and mellower, whereas the 2016 one has more of a kick to it. Now I've been back to look at the blog posts, though, I see that the 2016 was the rind of two lemons and two limes, which might account for it. It might need a bit more sugar, or it might just need a bit more agitation. We'll see next year.

I'm annoyed with myself for seemingly not blogging about my 2017 effort. This is under the passenger seat of my car. I am pretty sure it is just lemons and sugar, because 2017 was the year Sainsbury's decided to stop doing a deal on Bombay Sapphire in the autumn so I resorted to Bombay London instead and decided I'd keep the recipe the same, since I was changing the base gin.

I have downstairs a fresh bottle of Bombay London and three unwaxed lemons, ready to start the 2018 steep. I wonder if I should put some orange or lime peel in this one, for a change. I'd like to try grapefruit but it wouldn't go with lemon, I don't think.