Visiting the Bombay Sapphire Distillery at Laverstoke Mill

I've wanted to visit the Bombay Sapphire Distillery for ages. So for my husband's birthday, I bought him tickets for a tour of the gin distillery (these were absolutely not bought for me of course).

I was hoping to book the Gin Masterclass for us both, but sadly, this was not available on the day, so we opted for the "Discovery Experience" instead. This is a self-guided tour of the mill which includes a complimentary cocktail for £16. It was great because you could go round the mill at your own pace and listen to the various pieces of information about the distillery and the history of Gin and Bombay Sapphire as we went round.

Our favourite bit (other than actually drinking the gin!) was going to the Botanical Dry Room and creating our own aroma profile to see what styles of gin and gin cocktails we prefer. You basically go round the room and sniff a range of the botanicals that go into gin and Bombay Sapphire. You then stamp a piece of card and it lets you know whether you prefer Pine, Spicy, Earthy, Citrus or Floral gins.

You then hand your card to the staff in the bar and they are supposed to use your card to serve you the perfect cocktail based on your preferences. Although this didn't actually work in practice because the bartender just asked us to pick a cocktail that was closest to our stamps.

It didn't matter because we both ended up trying quite a few cocktails each. My favourite one was "Rosy Rain" which was described as "a long, creamy and sherberty cocktail incorporating Bombay Sapphire, Martini Rosato, Bottle Green Rhubarb and Schweppes Salty Lemon Tonic. my husband really enjoyed the "Queen of Hearts" cocktail which contained Bombay Sapphire, white chocolate liqueur, Bottle Green Raspberry Cordial bound together with egg whites. I also loved the Gin Basil Smash and Tonic - basically, we loved them all!

We were so lucky because, even though it was September when we visited, it was such a sunny day. The distillery looked glorious in the sunshine and we were able to sit outside for our lunch and also to enjoy our cocktails. We could have spent all day sitting in the sunshine, sipping on the fabulous gin.

The only slight downside to the day was the cafe. We went there early for lunch and, although the food was delicious, the cafe itself was a bit poky and you couldn't have a glass of wine or gin with your lunch as they only served soft drinks. They did offer to box up our lunch and we could take it to the bar area to eat it, but we didn't really want to eat out of a box. Presumably, there is some licensing issue, but given that the bar is next door to the cafe, it seemed a bit ridiculous.

We stayed the night at the Watership Down Inn which was 10 minutes walking distance from the distillery. The rooms were clean and comfortable and we had a really, really nice meal there in the evening.