I don’t like gin and hate tonic, but a new trend is changing my mind

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

Movie buffs will recognise those immortal words, croaked by a gloomy Rick (Humphrey Bogart) to piano player Sam (Dooley Wilson) in Casablanca, Hollywood’s most memorable scene.

The scene of the classic line in Casablanca muttered by Rick (Humphrey Bogart) to Sam (Dooley Wilson). Credit: Alamy

But what is a gin joint?

Dating from the Prohibition era in the US, the term refers to a bar that serves gin and other alcoholic beverages, but it has a disreputable element to it, suggesting it’s a bit seedy or low rent.

There is nothing seedy about gin and the joints that serve it these days.

If you thought of gin as a simple tipple to be enjoyed with tonic in the garden on a summer’s day, you would have to think again.

Gin has become the most fashionable of spirits in recent years as consumers move away from strong liquor towards a lighter kind of drink, one that adapts well to different moods and works with a variety of mixers. Light and fresh, it’s particularly popular with young women, who are driving the sales.

There are officially seven types of gin: London Dry, Plymouth, Old Tom, Navy Strength, Genever, Pink Gin and Sloe Gin.

New Zealand’s Otahuna Lodge has its own signature Chapter One Gin.

An eighth type is grain distilled with botanicals in addition to the traditional juniper. Craft gin has had a huge renaissance in popularity in recent years. And it’s not just found at the bottle shop.

There are reportedly 270 or more craft gins being produced around Australia. Just about every hotel or lodge I visit these days has its own signature gin, usually flavoured with plants that are indigenous to the region or found in the kitchen garden.

Recently, I sampled Chapter One Gin, produced for Otahuna Lodge near Christchurch, NZ, made with a blend of botanicals, such as myoga ginger, finger limes and honeydew melon, harvested entirely from Otahuna’s century-old gardens, using water sourced directly from the Estate.

I sipped the Pink Lady Gin, distilled and infused with rose geranium and rose water, for the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town, which is famous for its pink-painted facade.

In Martinborough, I tasted a flight of gins with New Zealand’s first female head distiller, Rachel Hall, who makes four gins for Lighthouse Gin, using spring water from the Remutaka ranges, some aged in pinot noir barrels from the vineyard.

Hobart’s MACq 01 Story Bar hosts evening Gin Tales sessions.

Lighthouse Gin is owned by American William P Foley, who also owns nearby Wharekauhau Country Estate , where sipping G+Ts while you play a game of croquet is almost compulsory.

Distiller Rachel does everything herself, including the packaging of the small batches and gathering the water in her truck. She’s happy to show visitors around her domain – the gleaming new distillery and packing room.

Rachel says it’s the glamour drink du jour because gin is simple and elegant. You just need to add tonic (her favourite is Strangelove’s Tonic no.8).

Visitors can book gin tastings at The Runholder restaurant and cellar door at the vineyard or order a Gin Tasting Tray at the bar.

Down in Hobart at MACq 01 hotel the Gin Tales experience in the well-named Story Bar is highly recommended for gin lovers – and people who love a good yarn. Six days a week at 5pm, up to eight people gather around a high table to taste five gins from the hotel’s collaboration with McHenry, the Tasmanian distillery.

Each McHenry gin is inspired by personality traits from the hotel’s cast of characters exhibit.

The hotel has been imagined around the stories of great characters in Tasmanian history, with each of its 114 guestrooms or “doors” devoted to a historic or contemporary person with a fascinating story.

Storytellers take guests on tours of the hotel and relate the stories behind the doors. The extremely engaging master storyteller – Aaron Cuneo – conducts tastings of the McHenry’s gins, which are inspired by five personality traits the hotel’s cast of characters exhibit – Colourful & Quirky, Curious & Creative, Grounded Yet Exceptional, Hearty & Resilient and Fighting Believer.

Those characters include Matthew Brady, the “gentleman bushranger” and Ma Dwyer, the brothel madam and publican working in Salamanca Place in the 1940s who reportedly kept an underground passage to Parliament House so that politicians could visit her girls undetected.

The gins are infused with different blends of local botanicals and fruits such as pigface, lemon myrtle, mountain pepperberry and damson plum – in distillations which are supposed to capture the essence of each personality.

Here’s my admission – I don’t particularly like gin, and I hate tonic, so every time I’m handed a gin cocktail, I sip it under duress.

But regaled by Aaron’s hilarious storytelling, I start to like gin a lot.

The writer was a guest of MACq 01, Otahuna Lodge and Wharekauhau Country Estate.