In recent years, London gin has found a strong billet in the city that it lends its name to. Here are five places where you can find tours that blend history with the chance to imbibe a few sharpeners.
The oldest distillery in London is Beefeater, dating back to 1829. Before then, gin production was the preserve of small distilleries, often in people’s homes. Many of them used turpentine to add flavour until a new column distillation process allowed a new-found purity to prevail over the Hogarthian effect gin was previously seen to have on London’s population. This new-fangled distillation process – swiftly called after the place of its invention – allowed gin’s botanical additions to be tasted for the first time and propelled the drink into social acceptability.
The Victorian stills are still in place at Beefeater’s distillery in Kennington, although it’s now housed in a 1950s building. Daily tours from Monday to Saturday (£15) take visitors through the process of adding the botanicals – juniper, angelica root and seeds, coriander seeds, liquorice, almonds, orris root, seville oranges and lemon peel – that gives the gin its distinctive flavour.
If Beefeater is the London’s doughty stalwart, Sipsmith, in West London’s Turnham Green area, is the disruptor. Now part of Beam Suntory, when it first opened in 2009, it was the first new distillery in London for over two centuries, using Lydwell Spring water, one of the sources of the River Thames.
Tours take place every Monday, Wednesday and Thursdays 6.30pm to 8pm and occasional Tuesdays and Fridays. Tuesdays also see supper clubs and there’s a monthly cocktail masterclass. Prices start at £25.
Tucked up in Bride Lane, just off Fleet Street, the award-winning City of London Distillery opened in 2012 and has two copper stills that produce five different gins. Tours also cost £25 and include a flight of three gins and the distillery has its own bar. For £125, you can also create your own gin.
Next to Victoria Park in East London is the East London Liquor Company. This canal side distillery used to be a glue factory but now produces a range of gins, alongside rye whisky, vodka and rum. Tours last an hour and a half on most Friday and Saturday afternoons and start at £15 per person; there’s also a cocktail bar on site.
The Distillery is a three-room hotel around a real, working gin distillery overlooking Portobello Road. Even if you’re not staying, you can make your own gin in the hotel’s Ginstitute. As well as taking a bottle of your botanical mix home with you, the blend will be entered into a database, allowing you to place on-going orders.
