Your standards that you find everywhere are going to be Tanqueray/Bombay/Hendrick’s (top shelf). Out of those, I like Tanqueray in tonic (my standard) and Hendricks if I can get it with muddled cucumber (it’s growing on me). Both are more complex, Tanqueray tends a little more floral I think. If you can find the Tanqueray Rangpur that is a tasty sipping gin in a tonic (nice lime notes) and 10 takes it up to even more floral.

My favorite complex (and probably more floral) gin is Long Table from Vancouver but that is not sold state-side yet that I know of, so… Cape Rock from CO is also good, as is Leopold’s (also out of CO) and The Botanist (Scotland, surprisingly). At this point you are starting to pay more - most of these are around the $30 for 750mL mark (similar to Hendrick’s - all well worth it in my opinion). Most of what is on the market these days tends to be more complex and my tastes probably trend that direction. The Sipsmith I mentioned above (London) is nicely piney though.

The best single-note gin I have ever had comes from a tiny micro-distillery in CO, in Ridgeway - Trail Town Still. All he puts in is juniper. That’s it. No other botanicals, no other nothing. Just juniper. It is AMAZINGLY good. His balance is spot on.

If you drink G&Ts, play around with the tonic water! This is such a big factor. My personal favorite is the Whole Foods 365 brand, but other folks are fond of Q-Tonic or Fevertree. It’s a personal preference. I find the 365 to have a nice sweetness that pairs well with a HUGE variety of gins and it is also a hell of a lot cheaper than some of the bigger name ones. I am also playing some with tonic syrups at this point although I have been less impressed by those so far?

I have only rarely met a gin I didn’t like. There was one up in Canada that was made from potatoes; that tasted very green. I’m not a fan of more rye-forward gins although if you like whiskey you might not mind them so much. St. George out in Alameda here does some nice stuff but I can’t remember if I preferred the green bottle or the blue bottle, which means it’s probably time to buy one of each and remind myself. The red bottle is rye forward. (They have real names but I can’t remember them.) I haven’t been all that impressed by Junipero out of SF or Aviation - they’re fine, but nothing to scream “KEEP ME IN THE HOUSE AND HOARD THE LAST DRINK UNTIL YOU GET ANOTHER BOTTLE.” Death’s Door is the micro-distillery up in MI/WI but that is another rye-forward one so I tend to add elderflower liquer to that. It makes it more drinkable. There’s also …Bluecoat? out of Philly which is tasty enough (that bottle lives at my parents’ house) but still doesn’t break into the top 5.

Oh. The other recent good find was Barr Hill out of VT (I think) which is made using honey as an ingredient. You can definitely taste the honey. It is fantastic and I need to track down a bottle.

Thanks, grad school.