Junipero is like a punch in the gut.  A good punch, like Patton slapping a soldier suffering from "battle fatigue".  Sit up straight.  Keep your mouth closed when you chew.  Who cares if there’s no sugar or milk in your coffee?

Drink it.

Gins like Junipero are what drew me to gin in the first place, and what motivated me to start this blog.  You can brand it, twist it, squeeze it, spin it, sex it up all you want, but at the end of the day, it’s a serious drink for serious drinkers. 

Spanish for juniper, and named after Junipero Serra*, who founded and ran missions up and down California, Junipero (like 209) is distilled in the Bay Area and the brainchild of an entirely awesome human being.  In 1965, Anchor Steam Beer was was close to declaring bankruptcy when Fritz Maytag (of those Maytags) stepped in and said, "No."  In an age of McMansions and Timberlakes and excess and masturbation, it brings a tear to my eye when a multi-millionaire uses his fortune to make the world a better place. 

Fritz Maytag said no to Coors, Budweiser, Anheuser-Busch.

He said no to the closing of his favorite brewery.

He said no to moving the factory out of San Francisco.

He said no to jacking up the price when demand skyrocketed.

Fritz Maytag invented microbrewing.

The success of Anchor Brewing led to the opening of Anchor Distilling in the early nineties, and Junipero has been produced in that facility since 1997.  It’s a fabu London Dry gin, with no eccentricities, overpowering flavors, or shortcomings.  It’s insanely good, and any gin-lover will be quite pleased—conversely, those drab people who claim not to like the taste of gin will feel their nasal passages alight. 

And I’m all right with that.  And so is Patton.

It puts hair on your chest.

5 out of 5.

*Father Serra eventually died of a snakebite and was buried under the floor of Mission Carmel, setting off a chain of events that would result in Clint Eastwood’s mayorship of that city.