Well, I finally solved the mystery of gin and It this weekend… In my teens, I read a lot of British crime novels – Agatha Christie mainly. It was all quite exotic to a thirteen-year-old Canadian who’d never set foot in the UK.
Country houses where retired military men were forever being poisoned, village fetes and cricket greens, debutantes and domestic servants. And the food – tisanes, gin and It, barley water, beef tea, crumpets, violet creams. I had no idea what any of them were…
Skimming over the bits I didn’t understand, I’d flag the least likely suspect as the culprit, and plough through to the big drawing room reveal, where the murderer was impressed into confessing all by Poirot’s dazzling display of logic.
I’d forgotten all about gin and It until I came across it in another novel. With the internet, it was a matter of seconds to discover what it is.
Turns out that gin and It is a sort of sweet martini – the “It” stands for Italian vermouth, like Martini and Rossi. Made a batch the same evening – tasty too…
Gin and It
(serves one)
- 2 measures gin
- 1 measure sweet red vermouth
- lemon peel, to garnish
- Fill a martini shaker with ice.
- Add the gin and vermouth, cover and shake well.
- Serve in a chilled martini glass, garnished with a strip of lemon peel.
Ten More Bites 
Yum yum yum… like many cocktails, the ratio is all important but also has to be tweaked to meet personal taste. I like the 2:1 for giving the drink a little sweetness but not too much…
I agree. A couple of recipes I looked at had a 1:1 ratio, but that would have been too sweet for me.
Oh, you almost read my mind.. Just last Saturday, I tried very similar cocktail for the first time, the only difference was that Gin was infused with Earl Grey Tea, hence the name Earl Grey Gin It, was loooovely 🙂
Earl Grey infused gin sounds interesting – I’d like to try that. Where did you come across it?
Just in a small local bar. The taste was so good, that I promissed to myself to get on with this Gin infusion with the Earl Grey tea as soon as I can 🙂