Gin Mare adds some rewarding complexity to your typical gin and tonic

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

Gin is a bit of a boozing blindspot for me. This was the result of a poorly laminated fake ID, a Providence bottle shop that did not care, and some shelf panic as I prepared to resume my freshman year of college. The first fifth I ever bought was 750 milliliters of Seagram's gin. That $6 purchase was later consumed one shot at a time in Pittsburgh and chased with... two percent milk.

So, yeah, it was a while before I went back to gin.

As an adult my experiences have been significantly more positive. I tend to gravitate to more floral, sweeter gins and then contrast that with lime and tonic. My current go-to is The Botanist, but my relatively small collection also includes some solid offerings from Hendricks and a strong, if slightly generic, pickup called Mr. Pickles out of Oregon's Wolf Spirit Distillery.

What I don't use gin for is martinis, which made me hesitant to try Gin Mare. I truly do not like olives, and this Mediterranean gin is distilled from them -- along with basil, rosemary and thyme. That's an interesting mix of spices to weave into the botanical base of the spirit itself. Well, time to see if a basic gin drinker like me can appreciate it.

With East Imperial tonic: A-

There's a lime on the rim in that picture, but I'm not gonna add any juice yet. That citrus is my gin and tonic go-to (and yours, I imagine), but I don't know how that's gonna mix with olives, thyme, rosemary and basil. This is clearly a martini spirit, and that's a cocktail I don't typically drink. So, light tonic it is.

It smells like a mix between gin and a fresh loaf of rosemary bread. Which, weird! Floral and savory isn't where I expected to land, but I'm open to it.

There's a lot going on here. It's got that familiar juniper taste up front, but then there's a push and pull between sweet, slightly salty and herbal. The lingering taste is a dry, spicy sweetness. It's a little like eating a Sour Patch Kid in the woods.

This makes for a really interesting sip. Despite a smattering of flavors that didn't appeal to me on the label, this stands up as a complex two-step cocktail. That herbal influence is subtle and well balanced. Adding some lime helps push that contrast forward while allowing a slightly crisper finish. In general, it's lovely; a swirling braid of flavors that seems to change a little with each sip.

Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's?

This a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Gin Mare over a cold can of Hamm’s?

Yeah, this was a refreshing but complex twist on a traditional gin and tonic. It may lack the innate poundability of the classic cocktail, but there's a reward here for branching out. I didn't think I would like Gin Mare, but it proved more than worthy of a place on my booze shelf.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Gin Mare review: Complex, a little weird and ultimately rewarding