My brother's festive Gin Bar:
Favourites were the Silent Pool, Maiden and Whitley Neill, all of which mixed very well with the Noilly Prat I brought along. The Bathtub and Monkey 47 were also good but the Lakes and Hendrick's seemed a bit lacking in the Oomph department in comparison.
Not so keen on the Opihr. Has a distinct flavour of coriander, which I felt doesn't really work, though others liked it. My dad garnished it with thinly sliced fresh ginger instead of lemon and seemed quite pleased with the results.
I have strong opinions on how to make a G&T, but my sis and sis-in-law both recoiled at the first sip of the first G&Ts I made for them and demanded extra tonic. Later, my sis mixed her own and offered me a sip, saying, 'This is what a G&T should taste like.' I literally couldn't taste the gin, it was totally overwhelmed. Really, she might has well have just left the gin out altogether. Lively debate over the correct proportions for a G&T ensued. I remain adamant that around 50:50 is the correct answer. (Good to have a family argument about something that really matters for a change.)
There was greater consensus on the matter of tonic. Bro had got in a selection including Schweppes, Fever Tree and Franklin's. I shared the opinion of "my friend off the internet who is a bit of a gin connoisseur (well, he drinks rather a lot of it)" on the subject of Fever Tree, and although the initial reaction was an almost Gove-like disdain for ian's expertise, on tasting it we pretty much all (except my mum) agreed that it's insipid stuff. The Franklin's is great though.
As an OT tangent to the G&T debate, there was also some discussion about how to make a Snowball. My method is: small measure of brandy, juice of half a lime, generous glug of advocaat, stir well then top up with well-chilled lemonade. My mum was slightly horrified at the idea of adding brandy (she'd been making them with just advocaat and lemonade), but I pointed out that the 'very good Snowball, thanks' that I'd made her earlier did in fact contain a decent slug of brandy.