Review: Informatics Gin from Gleann Mor

A friend at the University of Edinburgh tipped me off to the arrival of Informatics Gin at Gleann Mor.

@edinburghreviews

Wherein Girdy tries to review a gin “it tastes good”, discovers unboxing videos are hard to for real and so retreats to weird dolphin devices.

♬ original sound – Edinburgh Reviews

Why they didn’t call it Ginformatics is beyond me.

Gleann Mor is the company that produces Hibs Gin, Leith Gin, Whisky Row, Edinburgh Rum, Glasgow Gin, and others.

Although the website doesn’t say so, I imagine this gin is made in conjunction with, or perhaps just with permission, the Informatics department at the University, where computer students learn about AI, polymorphic functions, multi-dimensional arrays, and gin.

I actually found this CompSoc minutes in which Informatics Gin was discussed. Here are the ideas they had;

• Alan Turing – but he never went here
• Enigma gin – sounds pretentious
• Appleton gin (with a sticker of Appleton tower)

Of course, this could be unrelated to the Ginformatics (I’m going to stick with that name) I bought.

What does Ginformatics taste like?

I’ve drunk a lot of gin in the past, and while I try to be better behaved now, I can safely say that this is good gin.

It’s a light, fruity and especially botanical gin. Yes, all gins are botanical, but Ginformatics especially tastes of meadow flowers. Imagine the towering concrete edifice of Appleton Tower and rest assured that Ginformatics tastes precisely the opposite of that.

Like my favourite, brandy (cognac, to be precise), I prefer to drink my gin neat, but I started to wonder what Ginformatics would go well with it. In the end, I settled for cranberry juice, and where you might think this sweetens the drink, I find it actually takes the flowers down a peg and blends the liquid into something more velvety and less like dancing sprites.

Overall

Gleann Mor is charging £28 for a 70cl bottle. I think that’s good value.

£28 is a bit much for an impulse purchase, though, especially with postage to pay so I think Informatics Gin finds itself most suited as a gift for University of Edinburgh students or lecturers. In my case, I don’t regret buying it at all, although I shouldn’t have.

It’s not a gag gin or a gimmick. This is a good drink. I recognise some of Gleann Mor‘s brands though I hadn’t noted the company before this purchase, and I would be happy to buy from them again.