London Gin Festival 2015: The Review
- Feb 26, 2015
- 3 min read
By Gerry Flynn
There is no better breakfast drink than gin. It’s sharp, refreshing and cuts right through the vacuum-sealed brain of the hangover like sunshine through cheap blinds. For those whose day begins in the late afternoon, Gin Festival provided the breakfast of champions, for everyone else it was a splendid night of gin.
Quietly tucked away behind King’s Cross Station, and housed in the Camden Centre, was a hidden gem of a night out for those with a love for strong liquor and big brass band music. Spanning over three days, Gin Festival offered revellers the chance to bask in some of the finest gin this world has to offer. We walked in and were promptly handed oversized gin glasses that resembled something halfway between a wine glass and an astronauts’ helmet, accompanied with a well needed gin guide.
Outside drunken HR teams went shrieking into the night, but inside lurked a den of opulent extravagance – straight from the set of The Great Gatsby and with over 100 of the world’s finest gins (all accompanied with wildly suggested garnishes), we were completely stunned into submission. We spent Saturday evening in the company of an eclectic mix of alcoholics, gin-enthusiasts, young and old, eccentric and ridiculous all filling themselves with the most exquisite gins known to man whilst the live music sent us back to the prohibition era Chicago.
You don’t have to know much about gin to enjoy the night as the staff were on hand to guide us through the good times and the inevitable “gin faces” that were being pulled across the room throughout the night. There was no hoity-toity bullshit in the air, just drinks in hand and exuberantly passionate sales reps. Who can blame them either, if our day job was that intoxicating we’d be happier and probably better public speakers.
A quick word on the gins, we sampled but a few of the many on offer so here’s a few honourable mentions that have been forever embedded into our well oiled skulls. Whilst Aviation came with a garnish of lavender and made us feel like we were drinking an alcoholic paper-doily, it was countered by Ford – a gin that tries to be nothing more than gin. Ford punches you in the nose before viciously making out with you, whereas Opihr is just curry doused in gin and Brockman’s leads you in a heavenly waltz by the nose with berries and forest fruits before kicking and screaming its way down your throat in bitter anguish. These all came with an unfathomable supply of Fever Tree tonics. We were granted a catalogue of wondrous, mystical and often downright weird gins, but space permits us from babbling on amorously about them all here.
There was an alarmingly disproportionate ratio of girls of guys, but this was hardly concerning as everyone came for the sole reason of attaining an alarmingly disproportionate ratio of gin to blood, as such it was a thoroughly enjoyable eve, refreshing our knowledge of gin with the help of our well-dressed spirit-guides.
The only complaint perhaps, it ends at 11pm which is a bit like being evicted from heaven just after you get used to the wings. Plus, we can’t tell whether it benefitted from being an exceedingly civil night, like going to a wealthy vicar’s gin-soaked birthday party or getting drunk at a stranger’s wedding. It was a welcome change from nights spent wondering if the 7ft troll leaning on the bar is going to break your shins and use them to pick his fangs with, and even the hip young folk bloviating pretentious drivel about “the essence of gin” were in short supply. Just good people getting ginned up on a Saturday night with the expert guidance of the shaman-esque bar staff.
All in all it was definitely worth being brave, exploring and leaving no stone unturned, no bottle unopened – although the following morning felt somewhat like a kick to the gut from a steroid addled mule, but it was worth every ounce of suffering.
For more info or to check out their other festivals, head over to their website www.ginfestival.co.uk
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