Ad|Press Event. Welcome to a recount of my most tipsy day of 2019!! It was also the hottest of 2019 but that’s irrelevant. So let’s begin at the beginning. I was invited along with Luke to go and try out the Master Distiller Experience* at Slingsby Gin which is a Harrogate born and bred gin brand which it’s proud of! Their offices, shop and experiences are all based in the centre of the town at The Spirit of Harrogate. Here I am just before our experience looking fresh as a daisy. (Actually slightly hungover and sweaty but let’s pretend shall we!?) Luckily The Spirit of Harrogate is pretty instagrammable, especially in the sunshine! And can be quite the distraction!
Starting off with a Bang
We were welcomed by the team with open arms and a double g&t, Based upon this welcome I knew this was going to be good! That, and the vast selection of gins before me!
We started our session by learning about the 6 Gin classifications. To do this we had to drink a typical gin from each classification, neat. Needless to say, the Navy strength one was very heartwarming (burning!!) We then got to add tonic and try them all again. This did help me learn quite a bit about what I like, more than ever before. I presumed I liked citrus or fruity gin, you know the ones, Tanquery Sevilla, Gordon’s Pink Gin etc but by tasting the others I learned I actually love more of a Juniper tasting Gin as the peppery notes combined with the citrus notes were right up my street.
Cooking (well Distilling) Up a Storm
After another double g&t was poured it was time to make our way upstairs where my #OOTD (outfit of the day) was complemented by a lovely Slingsby Gin Apron. Our gin recipes were based on what we had said we liked. However we didn’t have to stick to the recipe exactly and Mark, our host, guided us through our choices and advised us one that would work best. I said I loved pink peppercorn so we braved dialling that part up a lot and we think it worked! The only downside to this experience is that you have to leave your gin to settle for about six weeks. So I still don’t know if it did. Waiting is just torture!
This bit was the longest part as we mixed, weighed and distilled our way to the perfect gin. There was a lot of measuring, pouring and dripping involved! As it distils you separate it into the three beakers shown. Heads, Hearts and Tails. You then decide how much of each end up going into your gin. In the end, I ended up with a 43% volume gin that I can’t wait to open! Once we’d labelled it up there was just the capping to do. Luckily I was still fairly sober at that point as we had our final gin after that part as a final parting gift!
I felt like a proud mum with my gin and I cannot wait to get drinking it. I was also glad I got to discover some of the other delights including their Rhubarb and Gooseberry gins which are both amazing! The team gave us them to take away as a thank you for my visit and I’ve been enjoying them in the sunshine with some Elderflower Fever-Tree Tonic which is fab. I think it’s safe to say I’m now a fully-fledged gin drinker now and have recommended this experience to anyone who I know loves gin as it was really insightful and lovely to spend the day exploring Harrogate too. The Master Distiller Experience is £80 per person and includes the bottle you make and all drinks whilst at the experience (we had 4 large G&T’s)
Have you tried Slingsby Gin before? Let me know what your fave is, if so!
Share me on Pinterest!
+ Post in paid collaboration with the brand mentioned. As always thoughts and opinions are my own. For further details please refer to my PR and Disclaimer Page in the menu above