Mention the idea of hitting 5 bars in an afternoon and the mind immediately conjures up visions of students or a stag do. Gin Journey has less in common with that, and far more with an afternoon of prolonged wine tasting spread over several venues. Or at least that’s what I told myself.
My wife Kirstin and I met our guide, or “Gin Guardian”, Chris, at our first stop: The Elgin, near Ladbroke Grove. The old pub has a gin palace-style area to the rear where we met the other participants and got to sample our first gin cocktail of the afternoon (Sipsmith G&T) whilst learning about the botanical composition of gin. One of our G&Ts was served with cucumber and mint, whilst the other had blueberries and rosemary, which went really well with the savoury tasting gin – definitely a garnish we’ll be using more ourselves.
We then hopped into a very swish minibus which took us to our next stop: The Italian Job. The bar was steeped in musical history having seen performances in its speakeasy-style secret upstairs bar by Mick Jagger and more that I can’t remember, because, y’know all the drinking. The cocktail here was beautifully refreshing: East London Liquor Co London Dry gin, citrus, Liquore Strega, Cocchi Americano, and Italian Cedrata.
Along the tour there were points where you could win small bottles of gin in exchange for answering gin-based trivia questions. I was lucky enough to win a taster of Ableforth’s Bathtub gin to take home and try.
Now, we couldn’t be touring Notting Hill without paying a visit to the legendary Portobello Road. The third stop was also time to have a bite to eat (to help lightweights like me) at the Portobello Road distillery. I’d never been to a working gin distillery before so it was amazing to be given a guided tour and shown the copper stills where the magic happens. The largest of which was around 400 litres, which sounds tiny when you compare it to the massive commercial production of the likes of Beefeater or others who use multiple 10,000 litre stills.
The cocktail we had featured Blue Mist tonic and marmalade so had an interesting flavour as well as being really eye-catching. It looked like a gorgeous Mediterranean lagoon with the bold slice of grapefruit reminding me of a sail. The tapas was incredible there too and they even have hotel rooms so you basically spend a while weekend eating and drinking your way around Portobello Road.
For our penultimate stop we had to slide through the side of a crepe stall to get to an underground tiki bar. Not a sentence I expected to be writing in this blog!
Once we were down in the delightfully retro bar we were served some Jindea, both neat and in a cocktail (with umbrella – had to happen at some point on the tour). Its lovely darjeeling flavours were crafted by a former barman at that very venue. This one was a personal favourite, neat especially, and think we’re going to have to pick ourselves up a bottle to join our collection.
Lastly it was on to 65 & King for a final drink or two as a group. Being on Westbourne Grove it was only right to have some Martin Miller’s gin, created just a few doors down with the purest Icelandic water. The cocktail we had featured crushed tomatoes, basil and black pepper so had a really fresh, Italian vibe to it. The perfect way to bring our afternoon to a close.
Our host Chris (of The World Sip – check out their YouTube channel) was so knowledgable and blew our minds constantly with facts and how many sayings (like “the real McCoy” and “one for the road”) had their origins in the spirit. We were also guided through the history of gin, the distillation process and everything we need to know to be able to impress our mates the next day.
We had such a good time and loved getting to know the gins but also the rest of the tour participants too. It was such a nice mix of people, all with different gin preferences and experience. It’s definitely something I’d recommend, not just to those who already love gin, but people looking to discover different ways to enjoy it, or just find some new likeminded drinking buddies!
The Gin Journey is run in London (Bermondsey, Shoreditch and Notting Hill), Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh.
Please note, I won a pair of tickets to attend this tour through Twitter.
One thought on “Gin Journey, Notting Hill”
Comments are closed.