Yes, there really is a place called The Ginstitute. Above the Portobello Star bar in Portobello Road and funnily enough therefore, also the birthplace of Portobello Road Gin. One of the many nascent (good word heh?) brands of gin that have sprung up in the last 5 years as part of the renaissance of gin in these here parts.
We've had a crack at a few of them – 6 O'Clock gin, SW4 etc – as well as the slightly bigger boys like Hendricks and Sipsmiths and this Friday heralded our trip to the aforesaid snazzy gin shack to be taken through a (somewhat overlong but at least punctuated by multiple gin and tonics) history of Gin. And then an hour or so of sipping very strong gins with specific aromatics and passing round and sniffing the many jars of botanticals, from the familiar but unexpected (liquorice, apparently a fundamental base in many gins) to the downright odd – Wormwood, Gentian etc.
In a nutshell (or nutmeg, yep that's one of the ingredients you can choose to include), it's 3 hours of boffing on about Gin, accompanied by 4-5 G&Ts, Tom Collins, gin martinis etc, and you come out with a bottle of their own house gin – the Portobello Road gin – and a bottle made to your own preferred recipe.
So Mr H and I now have one bottle with a balanced profile plus more citrus hints, and one with more spice notes – H's choice.
In case you're up for making your own, mine has:
Juniper, Coriander, Angelica and Orris Root (the big 4) plus Lime, Lemon verbena, Elderberry, Pink Grapefruit, Cubeb Berries and Licquorice.
H's has the big four, plus Licquorice, Cardomom, Lime, Bitter Orange & Nutmeg.
So, something for everyone. We've shipped in lots of tonic – do pop round! Scotty x