A blessing on your head, Jonathan! This is the one!! Plymouth is my perdurable favorite English dry gin; trusted, true, historically proven, it's the go-to gin in this house and always will be. Like you, I first heard of Plymouth in a Travis McGee mystery (this was in graduate school) -- and I've never looked back. Trendy gins come and go; Plymouth outlasts them all.

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This gin is great for making homemade cucumber gin as well. Just de-seed the cucumbers and cut into french fry sized pieces, then put it all in a watertight container for a day or two. Strain and you got a kickass Cucumber Gin!

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Well said, my friend. I had Plymouth while on a short tour of southwest England a few summers ago and loved it (a bit too much, I think; much of the trip is a blur), but haven't had much luck finding it on our side of the pond. I had assumed no one had bothered to import it, but since they are I will redouble my efforts to find it!

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My recollection is that Travis drank Boodles.

Carol- I have all the Travis books and if I remember right he started out with Plymouth but he switched to Boodles, and an occasional beer.

Here's why in a quote from The Dreadful Lemon Sky- "At drinking time I left Meyer at the wheel and went below and broke out the very last bottle of the Plymouth gin which had been bottled in the United Kingdom. All the others were bottled in the U.S. Gin People, it isn't the same. It's still a pretty good gin but it is not a superb, stingingly dry, and lovely gin. The sailer on the label no longer looks staunch and forthright, but merely hokey. There is something self-destructive about Western technology and distribution. Whenever a consumer object is so excellent that it attracts a devoted following, some of the slide rule and computer types come in on their twinkle toes and take over the store, and in a trice they figure out just how far they can cut quality and still increase market penetration. Their reasoning is that it is idiotic to make and sell a hundred thousand units of something and make a profit of thirty cents a unit, when you can increase the advertising, sell five million units, and make a nickel profit a unit. Thus the very good things of the world go down the drain, from honest turkey to honest eggs to honest tomatoes. And gin." The Dreadful Lemon Sky © 1974 John D. MacDonald

And here's how he likes it best- fill an old fashioned glass to the two-thirds line with cracked ice. Slosh dry sherry into glass. Swiftly, with strainer across top of glass, dump the sherry. Fill to the ice level with Plymouth Gin (imported). Rub lemon peel around inside of rim, pinch some floating beads of citrus oil on the surface of the drink. Throw away the peel.

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Matt, Plymouth *is* available on this side of the pond although you might have to do a bit of searching to find it. I suggest you call around; try the "upscale" liquor stores, yes, but don't forget supermarkets; in my neck of the woods, I can usually find Plymouth at Safeway. Some years ago (the early '90s, I believe), there was an issue with the distillery and hence the distribution channel. It's my understanding the company almost went bankrupt before new owners took over and gave the gin a well-deserved comeback.

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