A Spiritual Awakening

This weekend myself and a couple of girlfriends attended The Spiritual Sessions - a gin tasting and cocktail masterclass ran by Solid Liquids here in Edinburgh. I'm a lifelong whisky lover and gin has never really been my thing, until recently trying the beautiful Pickerings Gin (one of the featured gins). Pickerings is handcrafted at the local arts venue Summerhall, and is in fact the first gin to be made in Edinburgh for over 150 years. It has completely converted me, and so we went along to the tasting to see what other delights the gin world has to offer!

The tasting introduced us to Opihr Oriental Spiced Gin, Darnley's View Spiced Edition, The Botanist, and of course, Pickerings. The range of flavours across the different gins was amazing, I really had no idea they tasted so diverse. (Of course, this is compared to my very limited past experience of mere bog standard gin and tonic - and I HATE tonic.) 

We started with a welcome punch of a tea infused gin (pictured above) and after tasting a few neat samples, moved on to a three course cocktail making masterclass with matched nibbles.

My personal favourite of the day was the 'dessert' cocktail 'The Lord's a' Jammin':

50ml Darnley's Spiced Gin
20ml Fresh Lemon Juice
2 spoons of Raspberry Preserve. 
Shaken and served in a champagne flute with a raspberry floated on top.

So simple, but really delicious and looks gorgeous.

And after so much afternoon gin, we went on to grab some food and I then needed a lie down! Immensely enjoyable and informative afternoon. The guys also run similar whisky and rum sessions, so I'd definitely recommend the experience whatever your poison. Just remember, unlike me, to eat lunch BEFORE you go...