A couple of weeks ago, My Mum and I had a little trip over to York for the Gin Festival held at The Barbican. Each weekend the festival is held in a different city offering a huge variety of different types of gin, entertainment and even masterclasses. I actually went to the festival last year and really enjoyed myself, I wasn’t a huge fan of Gin at the time but my love for the tipple has grown in the past 12 months along with the festival it seemed.
The Gin Festival is split up into three different sessions; Friday Evening, Saturday Afternoon & Saturday Evening. My Mum and I headed over for the Saturday Afternoon session after grabbing lunch at The Cosy Club. We waited around an hour after the session had started to avoid the ques and got straight into the venue. On arrival, we received our guidebook entailing all the different Gins which were on offer at the festival and a Copa Gin Festival glass which you could keep and take home afterwards.
The guide was so helpful as there were over 100 gins on offer including cocktails! Drinks could be bought with tokens which were £5 per token. A G&T cost one token and a cocktail cost two. The payment system worked through a contactless wristband which could be topped-up at stations in the venue or online.
We tried four different gins which were all featured in the Top 10 list in the festival’s guide. The first gin that I tried was the Zymurgorium Sweet Violet which I paired with a Lemonade as advised by the Schweppes team. As I’m a big fan of Palma Violets, this was immediately a firm favourite of mine and I’m actually going to order a bottle! We also tried the Slingsbury Rhubard, Two Birds Strawberry & Vanilla and Aduro Pink Passion Gin. As always, the fruity ones appealed to use the most. I can see why they all made the Top 10 choices for the festivals.
Entry into The Gin Festival is £12 and tickets must be booked in advance as it’s a pretty popular event. I’d definitely recommend the festival if you are a big G&T lover. As I said before, the Gin Festival takes place in a different city every weekend.
**Update** Since attending The Gin Festival, the company went into administration and will no longer be organising any further events. However, Gin Events are so popular across the UK at the moment there’s still so much going on. To find more Gin events in a location near you, have a look at www.eatdrinkseek.co.uk/gin-festivals where you can find more details.
XOXO
*I was given two complimentary tickets in exchange for an honest review, all thoughts and opinions are my own.
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Nichola - Globalmouse says
Oh. My. Goodness. A gine festival? How amazing!! I adore gin so would love this, what a brilliant event (that violet gin looks fantastic!)
Mellissa Williams says
This looks fab, my mother-in-law loves gin, so she would love this. I am rather partial to a gin cocktail or two myself.