STAFF REVIEW: GIN TASTING WITH HAMPSHIRE WINE SCHOOL

Travelling by train from Bournemouth to Southampton, it was a short 30-minute journey, then a quick 10-minute walk to the Mercure Dolphin Hotel for our exciting Gin and Tonic Tasting experience. The hotel was beautiful, and the room hired for the event was wonderfully presented.

By each seat there were 5 gins to taste along with a variety of garnishes which looked delicious. I didn’t know very much about gin at this point, so I was looking forward to getting stuck into the event.

Once everyone had taken their seats, it was time to begin. Cecile, our wonderful host, introduced herself along with an introduction for everyone to get involved with. We went around the room saying hello to the group along with mentioning what kind of gin we like to drink. Of course, my answer was one of the more common, Bombay or Gordon’s, while Bex mentioned she preferred drinking wine over anything else. But that might have changed now!

Upon everyone introducing themselves, it was time for a brief but needed introduction to gin, including a little bit of history and the creation of this delicious spirit.

With that being completed, we began with our first gin, also known as ‘Bloom’ - the floral gin out of the five. This paired perfectly with the strawberry and the Fentiman tonic. Cecile advised that when drinking gin, we should add as much ice as possible, to stop the drink from being diluted. That ended up being a great bit of advice throughout.

Onto the gin number 2, that being the citrus gin, called NO. 3. This paired wonderfully with the Fever Tree tonic and its garnish was the grapefruit slice. This gin was delightful and extremely refreshing.

The third gin was a fruity gin called Caorunn created in Scotland.  As Cecile explained throughout, there is a chart to go by which displays different kind of gins. You have the floral, citrus, fruity, spicy and in the middle of all of that the London dry. As this is quite a neutral fruity gin, it suited the red apple garnish and Waitrose tonic.

Gin number 4, was a firm favourite for me. This was another fruity gin, it was in fact one of Gordon’s new releases. It was delicious! Cecile advised this would suit a full variety of fruits, making it more of a new kind of Pimm’s. However, we paired this with Schweppes, raspberries and mint and it went together perfectly.

The final tasting was Cecile’s favourite the spicy gin. This was called Opihar, which went deliciously with Schweppes, orange and cardamom. I must say this gin smelt like Christmas in a cup and it was scrumptious. This was also Bex’s favourite out of the five!

As the experience drew to a close, I felt like I had learnt a lot. I was especially pleased to find my new favourite fruity gin. A big thank you to Cecile for being our wonderful host. I thoroughly enjoyed this class. I loved the fact anyone could join in even if they didn’t know one thing about gin! We certainly walked away knowing a lot more and would love to come back - maybe to one of your delicious wine tasting experiences in the future.