March 2007 Archives

Strength: 37.5%
Form: 750ml bottle
Price: Unsure, around £9 (Threshers, Wimbledon)

Those of you who have read Eric Blair's excellent documentary “Nineteen Eighty-Four” will have heard of Victory Gin. Early in the story (page seven of my Penguin edition) Winston is already feeling somewhat down about the dystopian society he lives in and turns to the bottle to numb the pain:

“He took down from the shelf a bottle of colourless liquid with a plain white label marked VICTORY GIN. It gave off a sickly, oily smell, as of Chinese rice-spirit. Winston poured out nearly a teacupful, nerved himself for a shock, and gulped it down like a dose of medicine. Instantly his face turned scarlet and the water ran out of his eyes. The stuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in swallowing it one had the sensation of being hit on the back of the head with a rubber club.”

Victory Gin, along with Victory Cigarettes, are evidently intended to be fictional brands for the purpose of the book. However, extensive research (i.e. two minutes with Google) reveals that Victory Cigarettes is a not uncommon brand name. Previous random Googling had also revealed that Victory Gin was a Threshers exclusive brand, so a trip to buy a bottle was in order so as to see how faithful it is to the book.

Most disappointingly, the oik behind the counter in Threshers apparently hadn't heard of the book. Kids of today, eh? An attempt to explain and improve his knowledge was rebuffed, which is the kind of attitude that ensures there's no career progression from checkout operator.

Victory Gin comes in a plain screwtop green glass bottle with a white label bearing silver trim, the caption "Victory Gin" in large print, "London Dry" in less visible cursive printing, plus the usual statutory bumph.

The liquid within is indeed colourless. Gingerly smelling it revealed not much of a smell, mainly because I had had the foresight to leave the bottle lurking in the freezer for a few months. It smelled of frozen gin, possibly the usual juniper and other botanicals, so not really like saki at all. Leaving it to warm up revealed a new aroma, tape head cleaner. A treat awaits.

For the tasting, the gin was prepared in two ways. Firstly, there is the standard method of serving in a glass with tonic, ice and a slice. It turned out to taste mainly of cold lemon tonic water with a bitter indefinable aftertaste that might be gin if you use your imagination enough.

The second method of preparation is more befitting of my upbringing. I took a healthy swig of neat spirit from the warmed-up bottle. Alas, no mirror was available to check my facial colour or expression, but although my eyes didn't water, a rasping sound and a rude word did emerge from my throat.

On the whole, it's not an exceptionally good gin, but not particularly a bad one either. I would certainly drink it in preference to Gordon's, but I wouldn't have either if there was a choice.

So, basically, this is cheap no-nonsense cooking gin. Anybody got some good recipes involving gin?

Rating: 6 out of 10
Reviewed: 2007-03-24