Dutch Courage
Spring is the season of gin. While we hunker down in the wool sweater months with our favorite browns, keeping the soul toasty via a steady collection of Scotch, cognac and bourbon, when the sun finally returns it’s time to clear things up. Literally. We look for spirits that are crisp, light, and refreshing as the days warm up, and no spirit has the clarity and brightness of gin. Thank the juniper and countless other botanicals that can be used for its production — the resulting eruption of tastes and scents allow the best gins to leap from the glass to your nose and palate.
We can thank the explosion in craft distilling for the windfall of new gins, with some 6,000 varieties of the pleasantly astringent spirit now in existence. From Holland, where
