Brockmans Press For Gin Event

I’m obsessed with Gin so when an invite to Brockmans press for gin event landed in my inbox I immediately accepted. An evening of gin, food and live music, what could be better?

Upon arrival we were handed some lacey black eye masks and a wrist band with 4 pull off tabs, throughout the night we were served 4 gins. We received our first gin of the night, the Perfect Serve which contained Brockmans Gin, Fever Tree, Blackberries and Pink Grapefruit, this was so refreshing and fruity. We were then shown to our table, Sam and I were sat with around 8 other people. The table was beautifully decorated with flowers, a mysterious box and a menu of the gins and small plates.

When everyone was seated, the talented singer Tony Bowen performed for us. Throughout the night you could request songs you wanted him to play and there was a big screen displaying all of our #PressForGin tweets. The guest who posted the most on social media got to win a year’s supply of gin! They even had a GIF booth, where you could take boomerang photos and send them to your mobile.

Our first small plate was Cassia Bark smoked aubergine and courgette terrine with goat’s cheese sorbet, this was a light and tasty dish. When you finish your dishes and drinks you can press the Press For Gin button, I seriously need one of these in my house! The tables are served in order of who pressed the button first but make sure you don’t press twice as you’ll be moved to the back of the queue.

We were then treated to a surprise performance by a very talented lady who swung from the ceiling in the middle of the tables and tied herself in knots, she captivated the whole rooms attention. After this fabulous performance we hit the press for gin button and were served our second gin of the evening, the Gin-Tiki which comprised of Brockmans Gin, falernum, lemon and almond. This was definitely my favourite gin, the lemon went so well with the smooth Brockmans gin. It was paired with the second dish, which was Tomato and Liquorice tea, silver langoustine stock cube with squid ink gnocchi. I was a little unsure of this one as I wasn’t sure about squid ink, but the gnocchi was tasty. We were given a teapot to pour tea over the stock cube which created a soup-like dish, it was such unique dish, something I’d never seen before.

To gain our third cocktail we had to solve a mystery, each gin-tiki cocktail had a letter on a scroll, we had to work as a team to unscramble the word from these letters and unlock the secret chest in the middle of the table. It took us a while to work this out but we managed to open the chest. It was full of magical potions, essences powder and foam to create our next drink. There were instructions on how to create this cocktail, it was full of a mix of flavours and sweet powders. By this point in the evening people were starting to feel the effect of all the gin, with people dancing around the room and enjoying themselves. The dish to compliment this cocktail was the almond crusted oxtail bon bon with pickled blackberries, gin aioli and micro coriander. This was my favourite dish of the night, it was so tender and flavoursome, I could have eaten so many of them!

We were then ready for our final cocktail, the bleeding heart with Brockmans Gin, ginger, vanilla and kombucha. I really enjoyed this gin and once finished you could eat the cherry (at least I think it was a cherry) once you bit into it it popped and you could taste a sweet flavour with a tang of gin. This was served alongside our final savoury dish of the night which was Duck heart and gin cured duck breast yakitoris. These arrived on skewers and I enjoyed the duck breast but thought the duck heart was a bit too fatty for me. We then queued up at the desert table and tried some smoking meringues, jelly and salted chocolate ice cream which were all insanely delicious!

If you love gin then definitely try and get some tickets to one of their events, it’s a very exciting and unusual night and you get the chance to try so many amazing cocktails!

Brockmans run events throughout the year, this event cost £25 through Design My Night, which is pretty good value for 4 drinks, small plates and entertainment!