The Ginternet Movie Database

The Ladies of The Lane have, as ever, fully immersed themselves in Awards season.  We were of course delighted to be invited to the Golden Globes (this is a fib) - it was a wonderful night - and we are very much looking forward to attending the Oscars (this is too).  Our vintage Valentino couture gowns have been steamed to within an inch of their lives, and we've had the help polish our Chopard diamonds special like.

All that's left is to sit back and await the big night.  This lead us to thinking about gin, of course, but gin in Hollywood, so we've compiled a list of our favourite Hollywood gin references for you.  We'd like to thank our families, Miller's, Hendrick's, Bombay Sapphire, and of course the Academy.

 

I'm No Angel (1933)

Mae West's character Tira is caught up in an elaborate thievery plot, "Like an olive in a dry martini".

 

The Thin Man (1934)

Nominated for 4 Oscars

According to Nick Charles (played by William Powell), "a dry martini you always shake to Waltz time."

 

After Office Hours (1935)

A gratuitous excuse to mention the glorious Clark Gable and Constance Bennett, who spend a fabulous proportion of the movie drinking dry martinis with one olive.

 

Every Day's A Holiday (1937)

Nominated for 1 Oscar

Another Mae West film, here Charles Butterworth tells Charles Winninger, "You ought to get out of those wet clothes and into a dry martini."  This famous phrase was repeated in 'The Major and The Minor' (1942) - when Robert Benchley asks Ginger Rogers, "why don't you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini".

 

Dark Victory (1939)

Nominated for 3 Oscars

Bette Davis favours the 'Pink Gin' cocktail in this film.  Here's how to drink like Bette:

1. Swish 3 dashes of Agnostura Bitters around a chilled martini glass. 

2. Pour in 2 measures of chilled gin.  

3. Drink.

Casablanca (1942)

Winner of 3 Oscars, Nominated for a further 5 Oscars

Rick (Humphrey Bogart): "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine."

Dr. No (1962)

Winner of 1 Golden Globe

You knew it was coming - Bond, James Bond.  The classic "Shaken, not stirred" line was first mentioned in 1962's 'Dr. No', but not ordered by Bond himself until 'Goldfinger' in 1964.  Of course we all know that this 'ere is a vodka martini - two words which shouldn't really be placed together, in our opinion.

Withnail & I (1987)

Withnail (Richard E Grant): "Two large gins, two pints of cider. Ice in the cider."

 

Vanilla Sky (2001)

Nominated for 1 Oscar, 2 Golden Globes, and 1 Grammy

Sofia (Penelope Cruz): "I think she's the saddest girl to ever hold a martini."

Under the Ginfluence

There has been something resembling a three week delay on this post due to rather a run of bad luck for the ladies. Doctor's prescription for the gloom: Gin by mouth.

That is our half hearted attempt at saying better late than never as we proceed to tell you about the gin ladies' "missing week".

Under the good ginfluence of Craig Harper and his friend Emma (rum and gin expert) we went on a bar hop round town; quick cocktails at Just St. James, then on to the infinitely better Dukes. An institution. A warm welcome from Alessandro, what followed can only be described as effortless magician style mixing and the consumption of delicious, giant martinis on empty stomachs. Ian Fleming discovered the martini here apparently. We discovered a cashew shaped like a penis. Ladies and gentlemen we can only apologise. These things find us. However, if you enjoy that type of smut we can highly recommend the Knoblog. Less said about that the better, back to gin.

Next stop was a party for gin doyenne Geraldine Coates. She launched her new book The Mixellany Guide to Gin which proves to be a great little gincylopedia of brands, history, botanicals and recipes. The great and good of the gin world were out in force, the location was the beautiful Georgian cellars of Berry Bros & Rudd and most importantly we drank the soon to be launched No 3 St James London Dry Gin a Berry Bros own brand. When Geraldine says this is a classic, we think she's right. 46% ABV ourselves by this point, we stumbled, signed books in hand, to an unnamed pub. Unnamed only because things were a little hazy at this point.

We scooped up the dapper cocktail expert Jay Hepburn and headed for more cocktails at Quo Vadis alongside a spot of light pool playing. As we're ladies we won't say who won, but in a private joke sort of a way - Craig and Jay there is a promise never to mention the f-word in your most excellent company and promise to selves to eat something before drinking 8 gins next time round...

More Moore's please barkeep

Arriving in Airlie Beach this particular lady was described as looking a little bit like "Anna Wintour entering a crack house" by her traveling companion.  Expected beach bars, gentle candlelight, seafood and cocktails she was greeted by something more like Ibiza Uncovered.  Kebab shops; check.  Loud music from the nineties; check.  Boozed up Brits; check.  The breakfast cafes even committed the unforgivable sin of mentioning the H word...  Hangovers should neither be seen nor heard and if you must have one it should be managed discreetly with a headscarf, large sunglasses and pleasant company.

Heading for the infamous Rum Bar we resisted the temptation to work our way though over 90 rums and against all the odds we were in luck!  The bar had run out of the house gin so we were treated to an Australian concoction - Moore's Vintage Dry Gin.

Yes, the barman made it rocket-fuel strength, but this was a delicious gin flavoured with Australian botanicals, many from New South Wales where this gin is distilled.  Juniper of course, combined with lemon, lime and more unusually plum and myrtle.  And because we're gin geeks we like the fact Distiller Philip Moore is a herb expert and worked his way through 250 herbs before he settled on these 7.  We tried it with tonic, and if we hadn't been nudged the wrong side of tipsy by the sun and the strength, we definitely would have gone on to try a Moore's Martini.

This gin is truly scrumptious, and we made our way back to Sydney with a bottle for the road.


(and for the final instalment - our Lady in Oz travels back to Sydney to prop up the bar at the Bombay Sapphire Design Discovery Awards!)

Martin Miller, Agatha Christie and Roger Moore walked into a bar...

The Ladies of the Lane left their usual East End haunts and headed 'up West' on Wednesday to make their debut appearance into the wonderful world of Martin Miller's Gin, at the breathtaking Miller's Residence.  Martinis were of course the order of the day at this masterclass led by the charming and insanely knowledgeable Craig Harper, and we proceeded to enjoy a taster menu of Martinis through the ages.  Martin Miller himself popped in to welcome us, and explain a little about the 10-year story of his very own gin.

It felt a lot like the start of a house party in an Agatha Christie, and the cast included a classic English gent in tweed, The 'Reverend' Rum, a Roger Moore (Bond years!) look-a-like and some impossibly pretty French girls.  We took our seats at the huge dining table and were immediately presented with Martini number one - a 'Martini De Lux' - which demonstrated the somewhat divine ratio of seven parts Martin Miller's gin to one part Noilly Prat dry vermouth.

Craig was assisted in his cocktail making by members of the party, and one of the Ladies, though slightly flustered, was delighted to be taught how to make a 'Harry's Dry Martini' (Martin Miller's, Noilly Prat dry, Peychaud bitters, Curacao), although her 'dash' technique left little to be desired.

Now, after Mr Wynd offered his penis up for perusal earlier this week, we had hoped to avoid any further impropriety.  However, the Ladies seem to attract this sort of naughtiness and sure enough a gentleman to our right took advantage of a silence and asked poor Mr Harper what his views were on 'rimming'.  Of course he meant running a lime around the top of the glass, but the ladies could not quite look him in the eye for the rest of the evening.  Our desire to remain composed was not aided at this point by impending squiffiness and a growing propensity toward uncontrolled giggling. 

We ended the evening with a 'Super Dry Martini Doble'.  Alas, this heady, double-measure gin and absinthe mixture proved, ultimately, to be the murder weapon.

(Pst.. Book yourself on to one of these masterclasses AT ONCE!  Visit Martin's website for more info...)

Wet Martinis and Dark Arts at Hawksmoor

We don’t need to tell you about Hawksmoor. We don’t need to tell you that they serve up life-changing, mind-bogglingly good steak. Steak so good, in fact, that one of the Ladies of the Lane, who describes herself as ‘practically vegetarian’ broke her life-long no-red-meat rule on the premises. No, we don’t need to tell you any of that. Although the temptation remains to re-brand immediately as Beef Lane, we want to tell you about gin.

Hawksmoor is one of the many fine establishments which participated in the Beefeater 24 & Time Out London promotion back in September. Tap your details in and get two free Beefeater 24 cocktails you say? Oh, go on then. The cocktail list at the unassuming bar tucked to the side of the equally unassuming restaurant is the equivalent of Gin Drinker’s porn, with a considerable lean toward the classics – gin, brandy and rum.

It was difficult to know where to begin, but when one finds oneself in such demanding situations, one must bravely soldier on. A quiet Thursday night cocktail soon turned into an impromptu masterclass, and we were gallantly helped every step/stagger of the way by the dashing barman Pete (vital gintistics: height - 6’4”; favourite gin - Beefeater 24, of course).

Particular favourites included the French 75 (gin, lemon, sugar, Champagne) which was dubbed ‘the perfect cocktail for getting engaged to a billionaire’ by one newly-carnivorous Lady, and a wet 24 Martini, which was borne from the challenge ‘make me the perfect Martini’, and skilfully created through the mixture of Beefeater 24 gin, orange bitters and Noilly Prat Ambre, finished with grapefruit and I’m fairly certain some form of actual magic. The roll-call of cocktails consumed also included; Aviation, Hawksmoor Fizz, Martinez, Lambeth Lemonade and then, we fear, some shots, some macaroni cheese, and, you know, some Chateaubriand. And after that we can’t remember.

Go there at once and order a Wet 24 Martini. And a medium-rare, 900g Chateaubriand on the side.

From Dusk ‘til Dawn (well, quite late, for a school night)…

The Ladies of the Lane spent a most enjoyable evening of gin based debauchery at Bombay Sapphire’s Dusk Bar, Somerset House this week. Though a tad dubious at the prospect of being taught about drinking gin (which has always come naturally I must say), I was pleasantly persuaded by the first cocktail of the evening – a Collins. Followed swiftly by a dry Martini or three, mixed by the Ladies themselves (taught by the VERY entertaining barman Sam), and then a Cinnamon Swirl to finish. 

No less than five gin cocktails, snacks to soak up a little booze and a party bag full of beautiful blue cocktail tat is well worth an investment of just twenty English pounds to my mind, not to mention the large bottle of (yes, you've guessed it) Bombay Sapphire we won in the competition.

We probably didn’t need the last two cocktails of the evening but what the hey, we weren’t counting. And it seemed rude not to quite frankly.

Handbags and Hayman's

Hayman's London Dry Gin
http://www.haymansgin.com/

I often find myself at the bar with my good friend Tallulah Von Tramp - one time Paris showgirl, with the face of an angel and the mouth of a sailor. She’s been on my case since discovering I’m involved somewhat with the ladies of Gin Lane. I’ve explained many a time that this kind of scientific approach to the study of gin in its many guises requires patience, poise and restraint. Tallulah told me to ‘fuck off’, threw her cocktail at her face, complained loudly that there wasn’t enough Vodka in it, and ordered a pint of house white.

We were in a confusingly named bar in Islington. Upstairs was dark wood, low leather sofas, and felt a little like you might be in Barcelona provided you were running a temperature and squinted your eyes. Downstairs was a cavernous, semi-club affair, which involved loud electro and no people. As it was a Wednesday I opted for the only sensible choice – a Martini – featuring Hayman’s London Dry Gin in the starring role, with lead support from Noilly Prat vermouth and three green olives.

Whilst not necessarily a household name, the Hayman family is a stalwart of the gin world. The Hayman Distillers was founded in the nineteenth century by none other than James Burrough; the creator of the world famous Beefeater Gin and great Grandfather of Christopher Hayman, the current Chairman of Hayman’s. The family name has continued distilling fine gin to the present day under this name, while Beefeater Gin and James Burrough Limited were sold to Whitbread in 1987.

Hayman’s is a fine example of a London Dry Gin, and held up well against the oakiness of what many consider the Rolls Royce of vermouths. True to description, Hayman’s was light and pleasantly citrusy; a good, reliable choice for a mid-week Martini, and it would have leant itself well to tonic water and a hunk of lime. I would have obliged this urge had I not noticed my companion had inhaled her Eastern European Chardonnay and was now busily giving another girl’s shoes the evils…