... and a fruit based drink for the lady

I was sitting in a bar the other day waiting to for a friend (the kind of bar the Daily Mail would almost certainly describe erroneously as a hipster watering hole), when two men came in after work.

One ordered an old fashion, the other something from the menu.  The bartender knowingly explained what was in the second drink - essentially a massive copa glass studded with fruit, and garnish, oh and it was pink to boot (exactly what you’d want when it's 65C on the central line). The man immediately responded that he didn't want anything so girly and he'd have an old fashioned too.

Chatting with the barman afterwards I asked why he'd warned the customer about the drink - he said that it was his job to make the customer happy, if he hadn't the dude would’ve probably just moaned. He went on to say this was one of his pet peeves – “how the f**k did we get to the point where flavour is gendered?”

I mean we can all see it – men are supposed to like big, manly, strong flavours whereas women being light and delicate prefer sweeter and fruitier ones, but for your closest friends, how often is that true? 

I called to mind this anecdote recently as I was at a perfume and booze tasting (“Sniff and Sip”) with perfume bloggers. I asked my knowledgeable table mates what the difference between men and women's fragrance was and they said it was just brand and marketing. In fact up until the ‘20s there was absolutely no distinction and in some parts of the world like the Middle East, there’s still no distinction.

This made me think about how we describe our mead, I think that because we fall into the light, delicate (even beautiful) flavour category people often assume that Gosnells should just be a woman’s drink, but who said that has to be true? After all it’s 2018, we should simply drink what makes us happy (Gosnells), not what we “should” be drinking!