Nurse the Hate: The Gin Job

5.15.2018

Hayman’s Distillery
8a Weir Road
London
SW12 0NA

Gentlemen,

First let me say that I am flattered by your interest in having me represent your gin to the no doubt wonderful people of Scotland.  I am certain I could build a natural rapport with the people as soon as I could figure out what they are saying.  I will be upfront and tell you that I have had limited interaction with Scottish people.  Between us, I even had difficulty making sense of what the members of The Proclaimers were saying in interviews during their heyday, and my guess is that they were trying their best to allow an American record buying public understand what they were saying.  I’m thinking I will have a bit of a learning curve trying to sell gin to people that prefer scotch while not having a clue to how the conversation is going.  Maybe for the first 6 months I could just “stick to the script” but if some customer says “haud yer wheesht” it will be an uncomfortable situation when I just blather on about the botanicals in the spirit.  I just want to set your expectations right out of the gate here.

The other stumbling block is my general distaste for gin after a series of “incidents” in my late teens.  An associate of mine at the time, a Mr. James Jazz, had decided that it would be in our mutual best interests to embrace gin as a recreational beverage.  He believed it to be an excellent choice when mixed with off-brand cranberry juice.  For a brief moment, this “New Golden Age of Gin” appeared to have endless possibilities.  Soon it denigrated into madness.  In retrospect, the move from rapidly drinking “value priced” beer into bottom shelf gin was a step backwards as the later written song by a Mr. Snoop Dog (a.k.a. “Snoop Lion”) would attest.  I will tell you with great authority that an overserved young man throwing up gin and cranberry juice in the early hours of the morning will believe he is throwing up blood and think he requires immediate medical attention.  Thus ended the “New Golden Age of Gin”.

Yet, I remain intrigued with your offer of employment.  As you no doubt have learned from my WSET Overlords, I am tantalizingly close to having earned the coveted WSET Diploma, something here in the United States that almost no one understands.  For the last time, “No, I am not a sommelier”.  It might have been worth being tested on opening a bottle of champagne in a fine dining situation in a Court of Master Somm exam just so I wouldn’t have to explain what a WSET Diploma is to people that stop paying attention mid-explanation.  You can’t go back in time though.  I have only a small handful of regrets in life, and choosing the WSET is not one of them.  (If a member of the WSET grading staff is somehow reading this, please remember to “keep it fair” when you get to my sparkling exam.  I clearly knew how sekt was made. I thought by "discuss production" you meant the end results.  If you can let me slide on that, I’m sure we can have a few laughs over it later this year in London where I can buy you a steak at The Ivy.  Seriously, it’s my treat.  Order whatever you’d like…)  The bottom line is I know enough about gin to be dangerous.

But what of a new life in Scotland?  As you no doubt have learned via my Ancestry.com results, I am 78% English.  Besides finding myself suddenly infatuated with the Royal Wedding this weekend as well as almost breaking out in hives over the football matches, I am embracing what is clearly a genetic desire to take advantage of the people of Scotland and Ireland.  It is perhaps my destiny to levy the Scots with crippling alcohol prices and taxation.  I would be fulfilling a genetic imperative by accepting this position.  However, I need to temper this immediate enthusiasm with a healthy dose of reality.  I am going to require a wage well above what you are alluding to in your correspondence.  I have grown to become accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and I am not going to move into a depressing two room flat in Edinburgh just to fulfill my destiny like some sort of alcohol toting salmon.  The image of me coughing in the consistent rain trying to choke down a blood sausage in my flat while my indifferent cat looks on is too grim to think of for more than just a moment.  In this scenario, I name my cat “Mr. Bigglesworth” and he always moves away from me if I try to touch him.  Doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?

With this in mind, I am going to have to decline your offer.  Once again, I thank you for your consideration.  I wish you the best of luck in extending the reach and market share of the brand.  Your gin is no doubt a delightful way to spend an evening in Scotland surrounded by largely cheerful yet unintelligible friends.  I wish you the best of luck.

I remain,

Greg Miller