Update: Please note, The Gin Festival has now gone into administration. To find other gin festivals near you, visit Eat Drink Seek.
The Gin Festival in London took place over three days of the bank holiday weekend at the end of August. There were five sessions and tickets sold out rather quickly. Having been sceptical before attending, I can now understand why it is such a popular event.
Read on for a short synopsis of what the Gin Festival is, how you can make the most of the event and the top gins I found there.
What is the Gin Festival?
Established in 2013 by a couple with an unfaltering love of gin, the Gin Festival now tours the country non-stop, allowing punters to discover new gins, learn about the spirit and have a good time. It also allows gin brands to get their name out there.
The format includes gin sampling stalls, masterclasses, a gin and tonic bar, a gin cocktail bar, food stalls and entertainment.
Where is the gin festival?
While not all of the Gin Festival events are in amazing buildings (the Nottingham one is in a conference centre), the London one was in the incredible grade I listed Tobacco Docks, located in the docklands of East London.
The aesthetics of Tobacco Dock really added to the edgy/alternative ambiance of the day: high ceilings, wooden beams and an open roof area on the top floor. I spent the whole time wishing I could go to a 90s rave there.
How does it work?
Tickets to the event are £15 and this gets you entry to the event, access to online discounts and a goody-bag that includes your own gin glass. In theory, you could still have a pretty great time without spending any more money as you can try samples and visit masterclasses. However, the form is to buy tokens on arrival (cash or card). One token costs £5 and gets you any gin and tonic. A gin cocktail costs two tokens.
Making the most of the gin: how to tackle the day
Timing
A session lasts 5 hours, which might seem like a long time to drink gin but it’s not – you may as well get there as soon as possible. This will allow you to settle in with some samples, go to a couple of masterclasses, try a good few different gins at the bar, have something to eat and enjoy the entertainment while sitting in the rooftop bar area.
Tokens
Buying tokens, of course, depends on how much you intend to drink for the day. I bought 4 tokens but ended up having to tip my final gin and tonic out (although I wasn’t too bothered about that – the seaweed and thyme flavour was a bit bizarre). What I wish I’d known was that you can put your tokens towards buying a bottle of your favourite gin at the end – this announcement conveniently happened after I’d gratuitously spent my last one.
If you’re worried about buying too many tokens, you may as well go for fewer and buy top ups; they don’t oversell tickets so queues aren’t an issue at any point of the day.
Tasting stalls
Why not try all of them? There are more gins available at the bar than tasting stalls so it’s a great way to try a wide range. The stalls also allow you to talk to the people behind the gins; they know everything there is to know about their gin and will passionately explain what makes theirs unique.
If you’re looking to meet people in the industry, it’s also a great way to network. I got a few cards and email addresses for private distillery visits.
Masterclasses
These are great as they’re not too long but allow you to learn the basics of gin and the process of making it. Have a look at the list of when they are and choose two or three. Some will teach you how gin is made, some will be about how a specific gin is made and others will be a sort of update on brands’ new initiatives.
The gins
It’s what we’re all there for, really. The gin bar had four bars within it, each with at least 15 different gins on offer and their respective garnishes. I went into the festival hoping that there would be experts I could ask about which gins I should try in relation to the ones I like. This wasn’t really available, however, we were given a little book with a comprehensive write-up of each gin available and which bar you could find it at. This did mean that our decisions were relatively well informed. It also pushed us off piste a little bit and lead us to try something we wouldn’t have considered before.
Tonic water
While the event didn’t seem to be sponsored by Fever Tree tonic water, they’d clearly spent a lot on advertising and so only Fever Tree was available – although most of the flavours were there. I noticed however that in some of the write-ups for the gins, they suggest certain brands of gin and some did suggest the trusty old Schweppes.
I am of the opinion however, that you shouldn’t mess with your tonic water if you’re gin tasting – how can you know which bit is the gin and which bit is the tonic? I always choose a neutral tonic water and stick to that.
Top gins at the festival
A few of my favourites included:
- Masons Dry Yorkshire Gin: this was my favourite gin of the festival. I enjoyed the progression of flavours from botanicals to fruits and it had a lovely long finish. I went to the Masons masterclass and discovered that they don’t use the heads and tails in their distillery; most put the ‘impure’ heads and tails back into the next batch, whereas Masons just throw theirs away. Perhaps this creates the clear taste but sadly it does make it rather expensive.
- Tinker: brands itself as British-made with a Spanish style. That is to say it uses a Spanish approach that focuses less on the juniper element to its botanicals (regulations state that a gin must have a certain percentage of juniper in order to be a ‘London’ gin). Tinker has a positively fruity finish, which is enhanced by a suggested garnish of pear.
- Ablethorpe’s Cask Aged Gin: I’d never tried a cask aged gin so was intrigued. It did indeed have a bit of an oak-coloured tinge to the spirit and the oak added an interesting taste that complemented the botanicals. However, I’m not sure I could have had more than one of them.
- Opihr: I’m fairly sure that this will forever remain in my top 5 gins – and it’s relatively cheap! The most prominent notes in this is black pepper; it sounds strange but it is divine. However, Opihr’s suggested garnish is bell pepper, which I’m not sure I can get behind. I tend to have grapefruit and cracked black pepper in mine – with juniper berries, of course.
- Black Tomato: distilled from tomato and incredibly interesting. I’m not one to go in for Bloody Mary or a Red Snapper but I really enjoyed this – and it really does taste of tomato.
- Gin David: I found this gin interesting but feel they’ll lose a bit of following due to their try-hard image. From Siena, Italy, the gin comes in a rather ostentatious bottle in the shape of a Michelangelo sculpture. Being Tuscan, it is distilled from grape juice, which gives it a nose so similar to wine that I think, if we were blindfolded, we wouldn’t have known it was gin. The gin is also filtered through Tuscan marble, but nobody was able to tell me what this actually added to the gin. It was interesting nonetheless.
Buying gins
While you can buy gins at the event, I found it was worth going online and looking at deals. You can refer a friend and get £10 off a gin, or there are 3 for 2 deals going, gift boxes and even more gins that didn’t even feature at the festival.
So head to the Gin Festival website and book tickets to a festival near you so that you too can become a pseudo gin expert.
