The social drinker

Drinks have personalities, nationalities and even religions.

Red wine is clearly a Catholic drink made by Catholics for Catholics. Easy-going, flexible and uniform in appearance while hiding all sorts of differences, it is hardly surprising that the Catholic Church picked red wine for its most important ritual.

Beer is a largely Protestant drink: individualistic, seldom exported across national borders and not subject to the sort of universal rules that govern the manufacture of wine. Spirits such as whiskey are also Protestant drinks; one of those denominations that are free of doubt and full of certainty.

These thoughts came to me as I drank a rather poor glass of Ha’Penny Rhubarb Gin the other day. Could there be a more Church of Ireland drink than rhubarb gin?

No vicarage garden in Ireland is complete without rhubarb growing in some shady corner and few vicarage drinks’ cabinets are complete without gin. Gin may be fashionable these days, but the Protestants of Ireland, or rather those Protestants who are members of the Church of Ireland, were drinking the stuff long before the rest of the world remembered that gin is cheap to make and easy to knock back.

Census figures show that the Church of Ireland is one of the fastest growing denominations in Ireland, so it is perhaps not surprising that there has also been a proliferation of rhubarb gins and liqueurs on the supermarket shelves. My favourite is Hortus from Lidl, but it is only available from time to time. A more reliable way to obtain rhubarb gin is to make it yourself by placing 1kg of rhubarb stalks cut into small pieces with 400g of sugar in a large jar and leaving overnight so that it forms a liquid solution. Add in a bottle of gin and wait four weeks. Serve with tonic and ice.