A short rant about ‘intricately realised’ gin

I like gin as much as the next self-employed mother of two. It’s ace. Some ice, a good splash of decent tonic water. Boom. Job done. Some gins might taste a little nicer than others; personally I find it hard to tell the difference unless it’s Asda basics or something like that. Gin is gin. 

I was having a browse through a Christmas gift guide in a newspaper at the weekend though, and saw at advert for Silent Pool gin. I’ve never had it before and I’m sure it’s very delicious, so apologies to Silent Pool as this is nothing personal.

BUT.

There was something on the bottle that really wound me up. This gin is not just any old gin you see, this gin is ‘intricately realised’ and distilled from grain ‘precisely crafted’ in England.

Ooooh!

silent pool gin

Jesus Christ.

Intricately realised?? What does that mean? It was complicated to make?! You took a bit of care over your ingredients? Good! I didn’t expect gin would be easy to knock together, or we’d all be making our own wouldn’t we?!

It seems there is a trend that has developed over the last year or two for all of the best things to be hand crafted, by authentic, artisan makers, who live just to make the very best whatever it is that they can possibly make. At the weekends they retreat to the woods to carve spoons and nibble their hand crafted, organic quinoa biscuits because they are just so bloody precious they can’t just eat a Jaffa cake and watch TV like a normal person.

Take my local coffee shop. It sells coffee, and snacks. But not just any snacks – ‘delicious food to go with our hand-crafted coffee drinks’.

What does that even mean?! It just means that a person made the coffee, with their hands, which is kind of how you’d hope all coffee was made. We don’t live in the future. Our drinks aren’t made by trained robots. A human being sticks some coffee and milk in a cup and hands it to us. WITH THEIR HANDS.

And every sodding thing is on a chalkboard in swirly writing, like it’s the OLDEN DAYS. Because wasn’t it glorious? In those good old days when we didn’t have the internet, or pens, only chalk?

*cue nostalgic sighing and sipping of hand-crafted, artisan coffee.’

Even McDonalds jumped on the bandwagon. I screengrabbed this from an article about the design of an ad for their mocha. Apparently ‘Alison Carmichael’s hand-crafted lettering skills were enlisted to craft the outdoor executions.’ 

Sweet mother of Christ.

I think I may need an intricately realised gin and tonic.

hand crafted coffee

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11 Comments

  1. Tracey Woods
    17 November, 2016 / 12:01 am

    You are so right this artisan stuff is driving me mad its every ware, half the time I don’t even know what meal I’m ordering in a restaurant. I think people are really getting fed up with it.

  2. Hannonle
    17 November, 2016 / 10:50 am

    A product review I read yesterday said that it was made from ‘real ingredients’. WTF? Instead of imaginary ingredients? What a load of bull!

  3. 17 November, 2016 / 11:38 am

    AAaagghhh I know, . . . I see the word artisanal and come out in a rash!!

  4. 17 November, 2016 / 12:15 pm

    Ha ha, this made me laugh so much: I completely agree with you. I also smirk at ‘architect-designed homes’… well let’s hope so, as I don’t really fancy buying a home which the local butcher or milkman has knocked together. It’s just a festival of bull. Good on you for pointing it out.

  5. anne wallwin
    17 November, 2016 / 2:31 pm

    haha! so true! what ever happened to plain English?!

  6. jim
    18 November, 2016 / 11:49 am

    I think you’re confusing the difference between a corporation jumping on the bandwagon and attempting to fool the gullible masses with their generic, relabelled and inferior product with real artisan, locally produced products, which should be championed and supported at all costs.

  7. Janet
    27 March, 2017 / 12:29 pm

    Hey Jo! A really great post. Companies are indeed executing poorly formulated marketing methods by trying to grab consumers with these obvious phrases like “intricately realised”. I actually find it funny!

  8. Alex Feehely
    26 May, 2017 / 4:06 pm

    Thank you for bringing a smile to my day. I had to re-read it out loud to my wife!

    • Jo Middleton
      Author
      26 May, 2017 / 4:14 pm

      Glad you enjoyed it :-)

  9. John Sabotta
    3 June, 2017 / 10:42 am

    “curated” is the popular buzz-word here in Seattle, U.S.A. Of course, Seattle is a provincial hellhole with delusions of grandeur, so practically everything, from bar snacks to heroin is “curated”.

    Also Stella Artois beer is promoted here as some kind of super-elite imported prestige brew, whereas I understand thaty it’s reputation over where you are is…not so elite.

    • Jo Middleton
      Author
      5 June, 2017 / 10:17 am

      Seattle is the ultimate curated city! And you’re right, Stella here is basically what you drink if you want to get drunk quicker because it’s strong! Classy.

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