The City of London Distillery…

Today was a new day.

Worries about our future could be laid aside.

We went for an afternoon gin and tonic at an obscure bar in the City of London.  A little outing that took us out of ourselves for a couple of hours.

I’d been reading an article about gin in my favourite Sunday magasine and thought a visit to a distillery may be mind altering even if just for a few moments!  A minor change!  A change from what you may wonder?  Plays, museums, art galleries, concerts… yada, yada, yada!

Hubs, always on the ball, made a phone call to learn that today, the tour of the distillery was from 12 noon – 1pm only!

We dashed through our housework and got ready to catch the very prompt 11:11 from Beckenham Junction that waits for no man!

On the way this pub caught our eye,

BlackFriar

there is something about narrow corner buildings that appeal to me, the Black Friar with its statue below the clock was charming!

Over off Fleet street we caught a glimpse of St. Paul’s,

StPaul's

and turning the corner onto Fleet Street real this impressive building loomed over us with its well concealed churubs on the roof,

Cherubs

easy to miss if you don’t look up at just the right time like I did!

We found,

BrideLane

a very small side street and made our way to a lovely little downstairs bar sandwiched (pun intended!) between two restaurants.

Here the gin was distilled.

Here was where our tour began….but first, an entrance fee which included a large G & T!

There were five of us in the group and we were very encouraged to ask questions, make comments and take photographs, which hubs and I did!

Distill

Distilling is a complex system which went right over my head, the only part I could relate to was what was in my hand!

I did learn however that the alcohol is brought already mashed and whatevered to this place in the centre of London, in its clear, adulterated, 96% abv (alcohol by volume), state.

Here it is further distilled to make it smoother, a process larger gin stills forego…these guys know they can’t compete with quantity so have taken the quality route!

Then the stuff that ginnifies the raw alcohol is added.

The tell-tale flavour of gin is the juniper berry, with a touch of licorice, coriander and angelica root to hold the taste together.  For this particular distiller, citrus is the distinguisher, an undisclosed quantity of grapefruit, orange and lemon rind are popped into the pot and happy distilling begins.

The ingredients are called Botanicals because they have to be freshly grown.  No chemicals allowed by the EU regulators aiming to keep the farmers ‘appy!

I asked the difference between distilling and infusing since all they were adding was flavour to alcohol and I do that at home with sloes in my Sainsbury’s gin or cherries in my cooking brandy.  It was explained to me that what I was doing was called ‘compounding,’ a process not used very much anymore because it takes too long and is therefore too pricey!

Before the process of making gin was moved from the bath-tub to the distillery a quantity of sugar was used to cut the rawness.  When sugar was no longer needed to sweeten the palette the gin became known as ‘dry.’

A dry London Gin can be distilled anywhere in the world as long as it meets specific requirements, including the unmistakeable deliciousness of juniper. No quantities are mandated so there’s a lot of room for interpretation and rule breaking which makes the process competitive, unique and exciting!

Our guide opened the finished vat of 80% abv gin for us to enjoy the fragance!  The aroma filled the small room and I felt heady from the fumes.

This neat product is watered down…literally,  to a smooth 40% for bottling to end up on the not too shabby shelves of Fortnum and Mason, Harrods and abroad!

Independent distillers have only been legal here since 2008 so it is a new and flourishing niche market.

Showing our full support of a micro distillery we treated ourselves to a wee bottle!

City of London Gin

 

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