I don’t think I’ve yet said it on this site, but there’s a lot to like about gin beyond the taste of the stuff. Almost all of it is below $40 a bottle, random purchases usually tend to be pretty good, and there’s often something to be surprised by.
On my bar shelf right now, I have a few bottles I prefer to sip neat or over ice, a few that are specifically to add depth or a particular flavor to the right cocktail, and a few that seem to work as a “utility” pour in a variety of occasions. To name one gin of each respective type: Nolet’s, Tanqueray, and Fords.
I tend to make a lot of gin-based cocktails, including Martinis and Negronis, and every other month I find my “mixer” gin is on death’s doorstep, volume-wise. There are some days when I go with a reliable standby (and by that, I usually mean Fords or Aviation), but there are other times when I tell myself that my liquor store has a big huge shelf of brands I’ve never tried, many of them precisely within my budget, and I should tear myself away from the same-’ol, same-’ol. Even if what passes for my same-’ol is particularly good. (Trying a whole bunch of different gins and writing a blog about spirits certainly allows a man to winnow down some favorites.)
In truth, my bottle of Citadelle Gin was a replacement for an Aviation bottle a few months back that was ready to kick. The price was a very reasonable $24, and I’d dimly recalled a reader putting Citadelle on a list of his budget favorites. Sold. Into the cart with you!
“With the Citadelle gin, Lemon provides the through-line of the drinking experience. Lemon peel, lemon cream, lemon drops: it’s all there.”
Let me tip my hand a little here. Suppose I were a better spirits reviewer. If I were really interested in giving a gin its fairest appraisal, I’d crack each new bottle armed with a Glencairn class or brandy snifter, ready to pay attention to every nuance. Then, after twenty minutes of tasting and writing notes, I’d be able to judge whether it had its highest and best use as a sipper, as a gin that’s a delivery vehicle for a distinctive flavor, or as a jack-of-all-trades mixer.
But welcome to the real world. As I mentioned before, the Citadelle was to replace my mixer, and as with most $20 gins, it became a mixer right out of the gate. For the first three fourths of my bottle, all I could tell you was that it didn’t disappoint. As a pinch hitter for the Aviation, it performed admirably, and my cocktails were no less tasty. As I stared at the dwindling fourth of the bottle the other night, I realized, “Aw, shit: I should probably review this stuff.” And here we are.
Remember when I said that most gin between $20 to $40 tends to be pretty good and will usually reward a blind purchase? Well, here’s another bottle that adds data to my general theory. Like Aviation, Citadelle is of a lighter “New American” style — in hindsight, it’s probably why it subbed so easily for my previous mixer and produced similarly tasty cocktails. And yes, don’t bite my head off; I know the gin is French.
But let’s talk about the merits of the gin itself. Head to the Citadelle website, and you’ll see a lot of lemons. There’s the bottle next to lemons. There are people who make the gin holding lemons. There are lemon twists in every cocktail. It’s quite the lemon party.
And credit to Citadelle, that’s really the through-line of the drinking experience. The nose is big with lemon peel, but there’s freshness, too. Think cut grass and lemon pith. The arrival is dry, with the cubeb pepper doing most of the heavy lifting of Citadelle’s botanicals, though I was pleasantly surprised as the development brought lemon merengue and some pleasant salinity. Perhaps it was made all the sweeter through the juxtaposition of its earthy arrival.
By the end of my third intensely critical, thinking cap firmly on kind of sipping, I was nodding and giving Citadelle a mental thumbs-up. The gin is nicely warming, and everything comes full circle in the finish. The sweet cream continues into cake frosting and lemon drops, and the grass from the nose re-emerges in an aftertaste not unlike a crisp IPA.
Of course, it’s not all rainbows and roses. The nose is aggressive, and I found myself getting nipped quite a bit by the shock of raw booze. Sipping the gin neat was fairly rough and tumble, but over ice I found that virtually all of the clear flaws gave up the ghost whereas the lemony-sweet flavors had a chance to come out and play. I’d suggest pouring the Citadelle on the rocks as the optimal way to enjoy it. You could add a lemon twist, as the distiller suggests (or if you want to create a fancy Instagram photo), but worry not: there’s lemon to burn here. Let your lazy flag fly.
As it turns out, I had just enough of the Citadelle left to produce a tasting impression I felt confident enough about to generate a review (yes, this one). Which of course means that now I’m totally out, making it one more impulse bottle killed off and in need of replenishment. With that, I’m back on the horse: do I roll the dice again with a brand I’ve never heard of? Because to tell you the truth, the idea of replenishing this empty Citadelle bottle with an identical twin is pulling at me quite strongly.
