I have visited a few whisky distilleries the last few years. When I spent Christmas 2015 in London I was lucky enough to get a tour at Beefeater Distillery. This was my first time visiting a gin distillery.
Their visitor centre opened May 2014. We started with a self-guided tour where we, supported by an interactive iPad app, could learn the history of Beefeater Gin and gin distillation in London. Then we were taken around the distillery and the visitor centre by Loredana. She was very knowledgeable and enthusiastically told us about the production process and the ingredients in Beefeater Gin.
A couple of facts: Gin has to contain Juniper to be a gin at all. Beefeater gets their Juniper from Italy. They use nine different botanicals in their Beefeater London Dry. All the botanicals in the London Dry were on display and we could nose them; coriander, Seville orange peel, lemon peel, Angelica root, Angelica seed, bitter almond, Orris root and liquorice.
Beefeater had five gins available in the distillery shop:
- Beefeater London Dry, available in Norway at NOK 349,90 – the original gin
- Beefeater 24, available in Norway at NOK 390,- – made by Master Distiller Desmond Payne using 12 botanicals including Japanese Sencha and Chinese Green teas
- Beefeater London Garden – released at the opening of the visitor centre
- Beefeater Burrough’s Reserve, available in Norway at NOK 695,- – rested in Réserve Jean de Lillet oak barrels after distillation
- Beefeater Crown Jewel (distillery only) – the nine classic botanicals with the addition of grapefruit
My whisky interest has made me curious about other liqueurs as well. Even though this is a whisky blog, I hope you found this little teaser about gin interesting!
– Tone
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