Tasting Notes: Daffy's Gin (March Subscriptions)

When I was a smaller man, I would spend endless hours watching James Bond films and no doubt, that 1960s notion of sophistication and glamour had quite an effect on this young chap. When I was 12, I saved up for a coffee table book featuring A3 posters of the films. The illustrations inside were such perfect encapsulations of that world. Not just in that they featured detailed renderings of specific scenes but also in the way Bond would be drawn - looking straight at you, not smiling, but somehow smirking on the inside. You were being invited into the film, and cliché though it may be, one could lose oneself in those posters. The best ones were created by Robert McGinnis. McGinnis’s skill, and it carried into his other film posters, was that he made you want to not just watch the film but be in it. 

He managed to bookend the sixties with his depictions of the most iconic women of their respective times. On his poster for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, he managed to do justice to Hepburn’s urban sophistication while for Barbarella he produced a piece of fantasy art that captured the film’s confusing mix of male gaze titillation and female empowerment, a confusion that itself was at the heart of much of culture at the end of the decade. 

It’s difficult to imagine an artist less known by name but whose style is so instantly recognisable than this giant of graphic design. So what does his style have to do with gin? Are you kidding me? It’s perfect for gin - just look at the Daffy’s bottle and the McGinnis picture upon it. The martini glass summoning Daffy, the Goddess of Gin (actually McGinnis’s painting of co-founder Daffy’s Mignonne Khazaka) - is, as the Daffy’s website says “the visualisation and personification of the taste, charm, sophistication, complexity and depth of gin”.

I’m not one to let a gin’s marketing get the last word in my tasting notes, so let’s put that to the test. On the nose, it’s not taking big risks, just  a pleasing balance of juniper and citrus - it eschews  the modern style of bold aroma in favour of the subtlety of a classic London Dry. 

On the palate, this continues but there’s so much depth - they bottle it at 43.4% so there’s an oily richness but cooled off by Lebanese mint in the finish. It’s a gin brave enough to seek distinction through refining rather than trying to be memorable through 1 or 2 new or deliberately imbalanced botanicals- Daffy’s is classy and minimalist like the bottle.

I’ve not strayed too far with my choice of mixers this month - you have Indian/Light tonic and, just in case you fancy a change, there’s an aromatic tonic which will give your drink a slightly more bitter taste but not overpower. For garnish, I’ve included lime and some fresh mint.

Love and barnacles,

The Captain