A Night of Mother's Ruin
There are few things that will motivate me to head into The City of London on a hot and sticky Wednesday evening, but luckily for Wirehive, gin ranks very highly amongst these few things. So I hot-footed it (quite literally) from the end of the tube line at glamorous Ealing Broadway via the lovely Central Line to The City of London Distillery, a hop, skip and a jump from Chancery Lane tube, to mix and mingle with digital gurus and geeks alike at the Wirehive gin tasting event. Wirehive is a digital hosting company and also well known for its Wirehive 100 Awards (which we eagerly await the shortlist for!). And I have to say I rather like the company’s approach to new business, which is far less ‘hard sell’ and far more ‘get ‘em tiddly on gin and have a chat’. Now it is safe to say that our Digital Director Andy was very much amongst his own, surrounded by other men in jeans and shirts talking UX and disaster recovery galore. I however may not be a fully-fledged digital geek, but with the help of our regular internal workshops from the digital team and a bit of extra-curricular reading I managed to keep up and throw in the odd salient point here and there.
As everyone gathered in the private area of the basement bar there was a seemly never ending stream of gin and tonics with pink grapefruit (no complaints here!). We then moved onto the business of the evening – the gin tasting, with four gins to taste, either on their own or with a little water accompanied by a detailed description of the flavour profile and ingredients of each. I have to say my favourite was the sloe gin, but equally the gin and tonics with pink grapefruit went down a treat too and Andy was very taken with the Square Mile Gin (even buying a bottle at the end of the evening). Then it was time to hear all about the history of gin. From its ori‘gin’s (see what I did there?) with the Dutch (hence ‘Dutch Courage’), through to its use as an alternative to water for the poor (good thinking!) and on to its reputation as mother’s ruin, all the way up to the modern day renaissance of gin, with niche distilleries crafting distinctive high quality gins for the connoisseur. As fate would have it, just a few short steps from our private table, The City of London Distillery houses just such a craft distillery where they create some very fine gins! The beautiful copper stills shone in the basement lighting as Luke, our host for the evening, talked us through the finer details of the distillation process. Then it was back to our table for more chat, more gin and tonics (would you believe it!) and a charcuterie and cheese board – very much required after the amount that everyone had imbibed.
So after both an enjoyable and informative evening it was time to wend our way back to Surrey, stopping-off at the bar to give a bottle of Square Mile Gin a good home (it had to be done). Congratulations must go to Rob (MD and official bag guard) and the team at Wirehive (namely Amelie who I am led to believe was very much the brains behind the night) on a fabulous event. Not forgetting of course Luke and the team at The City of London Distillery who have an amazing place and some fabulous gins. If you haven’t been I would highly recommend it – you can find out more here and even order their gins online! I for one will definitely be back!