On smell alone...

The most unfortunate of Ladies has spent the last 11 days (go on, count them) in a most disturbingly dry state.  Due to a run in with a dentist resulting in an unexpected extraction, this Lady has been on The Drugs (not the good kind) and therefore not on The Drink for really far too long.  Suffice to say that I was therefore inclined to feel not a little sorry for myself on the night in question when, as per our invitation, we visited one of our number At Home on the Isle of Dogs.

And imagine my further woe when a bottle of a certain recently discovered gin was brought out, tonic was procured and lemon arrived at the table, for the bottle was beauteous.  Greenall's Bloom.

As winner of the 2009 Drinks International Design and Packaging Gold Medal and not one but two Gold Stars for Luxury Product and Designer of the Year, one would expect nothing less.  And then – you can image the torture, lesser Ladies would have fallen – I leant in for a whiff.  O!  What delicate fragrance was this?  Not just the camomile, pomelo (that weird and wonderful fruit, provider of an aroma of citrusy loveliness) and honeysuckle of their advertising blah, but another taste… could it be… quinine?  Like a G&T but just G, which, I would imagine (having not had a drop, I swear it), would slip down the throat with great ease.  How fabulous.  Perhaps the anti-inflammatory qualities of aforementioned alkaloid might help with me tooth ache…