IMG_2235
IMG_2217
IMG_2221
Yesterday I went gin 🍸 tasting in a church ⛪️which seems like an excellent way to spend a Thursday evening, unemployed or not.It was really rather fun, a nice young man called Alexander 👦 told us all about Sipsmith gin 🍸 and why we should only be drinking Sipsmith's gin and vodka and no one else's. He had many reasons such as their gin 🍸 is distilled through copper so is incredibly pure and smooth (I may not get the terms exactly correct) but copper 🏮 is VERY important to the process. Their gin spends a whole day in the copper 🏮, travelling about, and when it reaches the end point, they only use the very best of what is produced. This is the middle section, you don't want the first part, they use that for hand wash in hospitals, and the dregs are also not so nice. They infuse their gin with many botanicals 🍊🍇🌾 from all over the world ✈️ - and you can smell and taste the different aromas - citrus 🍋 definitely features. (Gin 🍸 is basically flavoured vodka, at least that is what he said, but I don't entirely believe him.) It is very important that the 'botanicals' are part of the distilling process and not added after - adding after lessens the quality of the gin 🍸.They set up in 2009 and were the first gin distillery to be based in London 🎡 since the 1820s amazingly. Gin 🍸is a very British 🇬🇧 drink, although we stole it from the Dutch. This is where the word Dutch Courage comes from - when William of Orange 🍊 was fighting the Dutch in the 1600s, the English soldiers 🇬🇧 wanted to know why all the Dutch soldiers were so brave. It turns out they were drinking the first form of gin, a drink made from Genevrier or Juniper berries🍇- and this is also where the word 'gin' derives from.Although I am not a big 🍸 gin drinker, I have been pretty much won over by Sipsmith - they even have names for their copper 🏮 distillers (Prudence, Patience and Constance and of course each has a story behind it) and every bottle 🍶 made has a batch number which you can put into their website, and it will tell you what the Sipsmith team were up to the day the gin was being made. It is called Sipsmith because, as a silversmith or a goldsmith are connoisseur's in their trades - Sipsmith drinkers are well informed gin sippers.The best part was the sloe gin 🍇🍸 - which is very good. They add the sugar to the sloes 🍇and gin 🍸 at the very end of the process which makes it very dry. This is good because it's not too sweet, and it is the closet thing I have tasted to homemade sloe gin which is the best.Well done Sipsmith - I didn't buy any, but I may well buy some sloe gin 🍇🍸 soon - they sell it is both Tesco and Sainsburies 😉. And thank you Alexander, sorry if my facts aren't quite correct, I should have taken notes - I really did enjoy your talk very much!Possibly the most intriguing part of the evening, was a quick talk by a member of the church ⛪️ about how gin 🍸 and Christianity fit together. I am pretty certain gin 🍸 is not actually mentioned in the bible 📕, but the idea is - God is very keen on parties and he has the very best wine 🍷, Jesus even turned water into the very best wine 🍷, at a wedding in Cana:''Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.”And they filled them up to the brim.And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it.When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroomand said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” John 2, 7-10This last line is important, as the idea is, that when you reach heaven, you will be at a celebration far superior to any on earth. Jesus saves the best until last. And drinking alcohol 🍷, gin 🍸 included, is God's way of giving us a small taste of the incredible party to come in heaven. (I hope I have got this right. Also researching verses from the New Testament 📘 gave me a rather weird throw-back to my R.S. GCSE, when I spent A LOT of time with Mark's gospel....)Anyway, thank you for inviting me along Becca, it was great, and I am quite keen to drink some of that sloe gin 🍇🍸 on earth, heaven can wait a little bit 😉.Alice xxx