Double Dutch was founded by Dutch twins Raissa and Joyce de Haas. Disappointed at the pace at which mixers have kept up with the increasingly open-to-experimentation spirits industry, they worked with bartenders, experimented with flavor pairing and tested on family to come up with a line of mixers of which Double Dutch Cranberry and Ginger Tonic Water is one of them.
Double Dutch Cranberry and Ginger Tonic Water is sweetened with sugar and flavored with natural flavorings and quinine.
Tasting Notes
While Cranberry isn’t naturally among the first ingredients to come to mind when pairing with gin, ginger is relatively common and historically its use in gin goes back to the oldest known gin recipe.
Poured, it has a robust and audible effervescence. A good deal of bubbles adhere to the bottom of the glass. Medium to large in size, they dissipate slowly.
The nose is more blueberry and raspberry to me than cranberry. Sweet, and slightly soda like— reminiscent perhaps of berry deCroix soda water.
On the palate the tartness adds a slight cranberry like note. The bubbles last into the back of the palate, though it’s less bubbly than other contemporary top shelf mixers on the market.
It still reminds me a bit of blue raspberry, with a tartness that suggests cranberry— a distinctive ginger note comes out mid palate. On its own, it’s clear as day. The finish is blue raspberry and a very gentle hit of quinine.
I mixed Double Dutch Cranberry and Ginger Tonic Water with Wight Mermaids Gin. Elderflower and seaweed notes jump forth on the nose, but the palate is nicely balanced. While Double Dutch’s approach on its own reads a bit as a nice, only gently sweet soda, when mixing the Cranberry and Ginger Tonic Water adds surprising notes that really bring out some of Wight’s unique character as a gin.
And I think therein lies the lesson of Double Dutch Cranberry and Ginger Tonic Water as a gin accompaniment. It won’t work with every gin— in particular I find it more difficult to pair with contemporary and citrus forward gins. However, with more herbal gins and of course— classic style juniper forward gins, the sweetness and berry notes are quite delightful.
Overall
Double Dutch Cranberry and Ginger Tonic Water is sure to appeal to fans of flavored tonic waters. If the words “berry tonic water” or “ginger tonic water” sounds good to you, I suggest you check out this tonic from Double Dutch. But if you look too hard for cranberry, you might find it strays a bit from the label.
My advice is to treat Double Dutch Cranberry and Ginger Tonic Water as a specialty tonic. Surely, I think it’s unlike most other flavored tonic waters out there and because of that— it’s really its own thing with few direct competitors.
Double Dutch Cranberry and Ginger Tonic Water is Available from Amazon in the US and Amazon in the UK.