Flavor Profile

That is NOT colored glass my friends. Cool Gin is actually purple. Not as purple as the bottle is at right. But it is a light pastel violet hue. Surely unlike any gin that I’ve ever had in this regard.

It appears that some sort of violet candy/violets were added after distillation. Cool, right?

Tasting Notes

The nose is floral and sweet. Lots of berry, creamy. Hints of strawberry, blackberry and custard. Very inviting. This is not your grandpa’s gin. Heck, the nose makes it seem like it may not be gin at all.

Floral on the tip of the tongue, Cool Gin has notes of vanilla and crisp buttery bread. Juniper does slowly build in the background. Berries, ebb and flow, coming in towards the end of the palette with an almost boysenberry note. The finish is a bit heat, definitively aware of the alcohol in this drink, and juniper lingers, Faint jammy note at the end. Wow, this is interesting and bright. Unique and more definitively contemporary than perhaps all but a couple of gins out there right now.

Cocktails

Cool Gin is made almost specifically for gins and tonics. And it surely doesn’t disappoint with a bright, fruity, floral, but also quite gin like character coming through. Great for floral cocktails that have creme de violette in it, as the violet naturally accentuates the bright jammy notes in here without drowning out the juniper. There’s some fringes of gin cocktail craft where this drink doesn’t work. It clashes with chartreuse, benedictine, some vermouths. Although I think its quite drinkable, it’s uses that really showcase it are somewhat limited.

Overall, Cool Gin

Fans of classic style gin might be turned off by the color and the nose of Cool Gin, but they’ll at least agree that it’s gin once they try it. Fans of contemporary gin, especially Hendrick’s, Nolet Silver, Eden Mill Love Gin and Dorothy Parker which showcase both floral notes and fruity notes will probably love this gin.

International Gin Exchange 2013

Thanks to David over at Summer Fruit Cup for helping make this tasting possible. Because the bottles are small sample bottles, this review is not as thorough as my normal gin reviews. There’s only enough for some tasting neat and no more than one normal-sized cocktail. Although I do my best to give as full of a review as possible, complete with ratings, the tasting is not as complete as I would normally want to do. If a bottle enters into my possession, I will update this review with more tasting notes, and I reserve the right to update my rating accordingly.