As part of our weekend of eating and drinking we went to a gin masterclass at The Jekyll & Hyde in Birmingham. A pub behind the law courts with an Alice in Wonderland themed beer garden and gin parlour upstairs. In this parlour we joined eighteen others (including a hen party) to learn about the wonderful world of our favourite tipple.
The bar manager, Carl hosted the event and very quickly got the humour of his audience (mainly due to the drunken hen party). We were divided into four teams and named based on the ingredients on the table, we were 'the gingers'.
We were given a 30 minute history of gin whilst sampling the drinks that made the story. Gin was given its name from the french word geniévre meaning juniper, the berry which the alcohol is based on. Some of the highlights were learning there are four styles of gin, tasting the first gin cocktail know as a gimlet - a combination of gin and lime cordial, this was followed by a classic G&T.
One of our favourite discoveries was the Smirnoff ice of the 1800's - a Tom Collins. Created with 1 part sugar, the juice of a whole lime, 3 parts Gin and 1 part soda water, this works on the cocktail creation principals of sweet, sour, strong, weak. This knowledge came in handy for our last challenge.
Each team faced four challenges all together. The first two involved free pouring measures by reciting 'one bubble, two, three, four' for a 25ml shot and 'Mary had a little lamb, her fleece was white as snow' for a 50ml, Emily gained us a very respectable 7/10 in the 50ml free pour. The third challenge was a blind gin tasting of three very different varieties, unfortunately the drunk women on our table volunteered to do this and we got no points compared to the other teams getting 10.
For the last challenge we were losing badly, so me and Emily stepped in to try an earn a possible 25 points and make a comeback! As we were last we had the first pick of gins so went for our favourite - Hendricks. We are big fans of traditional gins flavoured with unusual botanicals and this is a great example with Bulgarian rose and cucumber. It was then a free for all to grab whatever you could from the 'condiment' table to create your cocktail to go with your ingredient.
Emily swooped in and grabbed the teacup and teapot to serve and a blood orange syrup, we got a lucky dip of Chegworth Valley pear and raspberry juice too plus our ginger root. First we had a practice and then had to go to the bar and show of our new gin knowledge and make the cocktail in front of the group. Emily did the knowledge, I did the mixing! Below is the recipe we created:
Bleedin' Ginger
- Finely slice or grate 1cm of ginger
- Mash the ginger with the juice of one lime (sour)
- Mix with 10ml blood orange syrup (sweet), 50ml Hendricks(strong) and the Pear and Raspberry juice (weak) over ice
- Sieve through a tea strainer to get rid of the ginger straight into the teapot.
- Rim the edge of the teacup with lime
- From a height artfully decant the bright pink drink into the cup.
It tasted yummy! Between the name, taste, knowledge and mixing technique we scored a massive 22/25, the other teams got 12, 13 and 14 so we made an impressive comeback from last place to joint second. Not that we are competitive!
We had a throughly enjoyable day and would recommend it to friends and groups of people looking to have fun whilst learning something about gin.
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