5 Gintastic Years of The Oliver Conquest

The Oliver Conquest bespoke gin made by Gin Foundry – special tea blend.

Gin Club with a Reading Problem decided to come along to taste it (well free tastings are always popular!)

Our special reserved table! 😃

We started out with the OC gin and tonic – recommended serve with orange and Rose buds, and FeverTree tonic (obviously!). The first flavour to hit me on tasting with tonic, was the cardamom – one of my favourite gin botanicals.

Then Olivier from Gin Foundry started to take us through the distillates that represent the main botanicals for the OC gin.

(once he’s started you can’t shut him up, only joking! But this did leave Emile from Gin Foundry with the main task of handing out drink samples!).

We started off with two similar distillates (that’s single botanicals distilled on their own), fresh orange and dried orange peel. What a difference fresh versus dry makes!! I’ve known about this as a choice to make when deciding on your botanicals for gin, but never tried the two different botanicals separately to them being in a gin – such an interesting start to the tasting!

We then sampled coriander, angelica, green cardamom, and the special tea blend used in the OC gin. The special tea distillate includes black tea, plus rose petals and hibiscus (my favourite distillate along with the cardamom).

Then finally we tried the OC gin neat 😃, this would make a great martini! Olivier explained that they blend all the separate distillates together to make the gin – each batch is slightly different – so it’s not a London Dry style (you have to distill all the botanicals together for that designation).

We also tried an OC Negroni – lovely glasses and delicious cocktail! (OC gin with Antica Formula and Campari)

Which brings me nicely to the new venture Aperitivo, upstairs at the OC Weds- Friday every week in November.

This is a little piece of Italy in East London! They are serving Classic Italian inspired cocktails, like the Negroni, with an Oliver Conquest twist. Even better the drinks come with nibbles such as Parma ham, cheese, figs and bruschetta.

They are also doing special distillers tables – featuring a different distiller in an informal atmosphere. Basically you chat to them about the gin whilst drinking cocktails and eating your Italian snacks – £25 including food and two cocktails, pre booking required to guarantee a spot.

Be sure to check out the distilled Negroni – a great twist on a classic idea!

For the full event calendar check out the Oliver Conquest new shiny website!

Great new sign decorating the upstairs Apetritivo bar.

Ps – yes it does make a great martini, here’s one I made with my bottle of OC gin – £32 and you can only buy it at The Oliver Conquest.