This Wednesday, I finally cashed in a voucher I had been bought for my birthday all the way back in November. The voucher was so beautiful that it constituted a present in itself for a stationary fiend like me, a rectangle of creamy card embossed with copper calligraphy:
But what it entitled me to was even better – the chance to make my very own gin, under the expert supervision of gin-master Jake Burger at the Ginstitute, home of Portobello Road London Dry Gin!
I am an enormous fan of gin. Although I’m generally speaking a beer drinker, a good G&T is my go-to drink whenever I’m trying to shift my beer belly, or if by evil chance I find myself in the sort of establishment that considers Stella Artois to be the last word in brewed beverages. As with everything I like, I enjoy the opportunity to find out more about it. I also liked the do-it-yourself aspect of the gift. I have made my own fruit wine before, and assisted in the creation of several batches of real ale of varying degrees of drinkability. But with the best will in the world, I think I’d have a hard time setting up my own distillery in the kitchen cupboard. The Ginstitute offered the opportunity to muck about making spirits without any commitment.
I got to Notting Hill Gate early, so had a pleasant amble down the Portobello Road, enjoying being there on a mild weekday afternoon when it was actually possible to stroll instead of swim through the packed throngs. The Portobello Star (which houses the Ginstitute) is a small but perfectly formed bar room, all dark wood and green-and-gold wallpaper, and as I waited there I leafed through their menu, featuring bar snacks created in partnership with the sublime Ginger Pig butchers, and a dizzying array of imaginatively-named cocktails.
My fellow Ginstituters were also waiting – a couple from York who had been given the vouchers as a gift by their son, and another couple who had more or less wandered in off the street, intrigued by the advertisement outside the pub. Presently, we were ushered upstairs into ‘the smallest museum in London’, and into the presence of Jake, who was in the process of constructing a round of perfect Tom Collins cocktails. Whilst we dispatched these with indecent haste, he brought us up to speed on the dim, dirty and sometimes downright depressing history of gin in England.
Gin first appears in the early 16th century (or possibly some time before, depending on who you’re listening to and how you classify something as ‘gin’) when the Dutch are recorded as guzzling down genever. When English soldiers fought alongside them against the Spanish in 1585, they enthusiastically acquired the habit, imbibing freely before going into battle (possibly the origin of the expression ‘Dutch courage’). It didn’t take long for them to bring the tipple back with them to Blighty, and gin, being very strong and extremely cheap, quickly became so wildly popular with the ‘lower orders’ that it threatened the very social and economic fabric of the country. William Hogarth’s famous etchings, Beer Street and Gin Lane, demonstrated what he and many others saw to be the deleterious effects of the gin craze on the working classes, who had formerly thrived on a diet of weak ale.
Although manifestly suffering from a brutal cold, Jake still brought the history of gin on both sides of the Atlantic to vivid life, with his enthusiasm and his store of fascinating facts. It helped that the museum was so atmospheric, full of gin-erobilia – glass cabinets filled with dusty bottles of long-defunct brands, the business card of one of the greatest American cocktail mixers, and a number of ornate, hand-etched mirrors in the lavish style of the 18th century’s ‘gin palaces’, which still informs the ambience of many a traditional English pub today.
Leaving behind the bad old days of gut-rot adulterated with turps and sulphuric acid, Jake brought us bang up to date with the invention of the column still, the regulation of the distillation industry, the rise (and occasional fall) of the big hitters of mass-produced gin, and the current renaissance of artisanal gin makers proliferating in London today. It quickly becomes clear from all the fond name-dropping that the gin world is a small and cordial one – the Portobello Road team are as friendly with the managers of Beefeater and Bombay Sapphire as they are with small-scale operators who might be seen as their direct competitors, such as the team of toffs behind the Sipsmiths range.
The history lesson was over too soon, and it was back to the business in hand. Armed with notepad, pencil and a bracing G&T (with the Portobello Star’s distinctive twist of grapefruit rather than lemon or lime) we trooped up to the still room – a magnificent mad-scientist-meets-art-deco laboratory full of test-tubes and great glass demijohns of alcohol – to get hands-on creating our own gin.
Jake set out the parameters of our project. London dry gin is legally a grain-based spirit of at least 37.5% ABV in which the flavour of juniper predominates (and does not, contrary to what you might expect, have to be made in London). Beyond these basic stipulations, the world was our oyster – although he did also point out that in order to produce something drinkable, it was important to maintain a balance between the juniper base, the zesty, fruity top notes, more ephemeral flavours and the lingering spice tones. He pointed out that with so many botanicals to choose from this did not significantly limit a gin-blender’s scope – he had recently had someone come in determined to achieve a curry gin, and was able to send them away with a bottle of something that satisfied this peculiar desire and could still be said to answer to the name of gin.
To give us an idea of the possibilities, Jake passed around a number of raw aromatics, including juniper berries, coriander seed, and orris and licorice roots, encouraging us to crush, smell and taste. The juniper yielded the Christmassy aroma and sweaty undertone familiar to anyone who’s ever stuck their beak into a G&T. Jake told us that it grows wild on the mountainsides of Tuscany, and is hand-harvested, the berries beaten from the prickly bushes into buckets using a special stick known as a spank-berry.
When I was able to control my mirth at this (I think perhaps that third cocktail was not such a great idea) he continued to introduce us to the somewhat daunting array of distillations at our disposal, ranging from familiar kitchen staples like cinnamon and orange peel to the rather more exotic (wormwood), the unexpected (English hops??) and the (to me) downright essential (Yorkshire Tea? Yes please). We were given some time to scribble down the flavours that had most appealed to us, advised by Jake if we had gone too far off-piste, and finally – the science bit! – were allowed to start mixing up our gins.
I had decided to create a plain and hearty English gin, evoking the cosy, comfortable pleasures I subscribe to. So in addition to Jake’s recommended minimum mixture of juniper, coriander, angelica and orris root, I added English hops, a healthy slug of Yorkshire tea, an extra helping of the biscuit-y orris, some cassia (described by Jake as tasting ‘like cinnamon but more so’) and a little lemon verbena and some grapefruit for a lift. I wish I could pretend this was the result of a judicious decision-making process, but frankly I was just overexcited, and had to be politely restrained from adding elderberry, dandelion and burdock, and licorice root as well.
The result was deemed a success by Jake, my Ginstitute colleagues, and most importantly by me, and was lovingly christened “Spankberry Tea & Biscuits”. Offered the choice of having the label applied dead flush or drunkenly askew, I’m sure you can guess what I opted for. If you fancy putting your tastebuds in my hands, you can nip along to the Ginstitute’s website and order a bottle of my gin – just enter number C191403. However, I can just as confidently recommend the Portobello Road’s own Number 171. I was also provided with a bottle of this as part of the day’s haul, and can therefore testify to its deliciousness in cocktails, mixed with tonic or slurped surreptitiously from the bottle on a station platform.
We finished off the afternoon with a round of martinis back in the museum, then stumbled off into the sunlit streets, a bottle of gin under each arm and dipsomaniac smiles on our faces. An absolutely corking present for anyone you know who’s fond of gin!
Everything is better in a Fairisle Sweater 