Visit at Beefeater, London

In connection with my first part of the Summer vacation, which I spend some days in London, before participating in jam making course at WI. Here I besides from visiting museums, drinking afternoon tea and filling up my suitcase with various shopping, I also found that it was also possible to visit the Beefeater Distillery. So I took my walking shoes on and went by feet to the distillery for a tour. The tour starts on the gin shop with different types of bottles of Beefeater Gin and various merchandise.

The people in shop are very informative about the difference between the different gins. This shop is also the only place, where you can buy the gin called London Garden (guess what a bottle of this gin found it´s way into my suitcase).

The tour starts with tour of the gin museum, which explain both the bad and good part of the gin history. One part is this gin cat, where you would put a coin in the cat´s mouth and when gin would be poured out of the tap at the cats leg, which way you could break the restrictions on gin sale !!!

After the museum part a guide will explain how gin is created and what types of botanicals is used for gin. Juniper is one botanical, but in the plain Beefeater Gin 10 different botanicals is added.

Afterwards the guide will take you to heart of the distillery, where you can the different pot for distillation from quiet small to large pots. The small pots are for the smaller gin types such as Burrough´s Reserve and London Garden.

The final destination is off cause the bar, where you will be served a classic gin tonic with a slice of orange. According to the tour guide the master distiller Desmond Payne had approved the use of either lemon or orange for the classic gin tonic. But the bar was not allowed to use a slice of lime in the gin tonic. The master distiller was not around, so I could tell him, that I am a big fan of gin tonic with lime.

The next time I am in London I will book a visit to another gin distillery.