Stockport Gin - visiting the home of Stockport Gin (tour)

Stockport Gin – visiting the home of Stockport Gin (tour)

Earlier this year our daughter and son in law bought us a gift …. it was tickets to visit the Stockport Gin Distillery.

With other commitments the earliest we could do this and get it booked in the diary was for the end of September .

We had made the booking back in July and so had this on the horizon to look forward to for several months.

Expectations exceeded

There will have been plenty of times in life when most of us, if not all of us, will have had high hopes and expectations dashed.

That simply isn’t the case with our visit to the Stockport Distillery Tour.

We had it booked in between trips – our last one to Budapest and my next one to Portugal and Spain.

We also had to take account of Manchester City fixtures so our visit at the end of September was one of the few times this year when circumstances and commitments lined up.

On a grey and rainy Saturday, our visit there proved to be really enjoyable and a really good way to pass a couple of hours.

It got off to a good start

I suppose any activity that starts with a double gin is going to be promising – and that was exactly how the tour started.

Paul – who owns the business with his wife Cheryl hosted our event and honestly it was such a good way to spend a few hours.

The enthusiasm of Paul for the business and his obvious knowledge, love and enjoyment of all things gin was obvious throughout our time there.

His stories and anecdotes of how the business started and how it has evolved to date were well told and Paul’s easy going style and relaxed manner made for a really enjoyable time.

The tour is advertised as being around 90 minutes but in our case was the actually the best part of two hours.

It’s a small set up

It’s a small set up that was originally set up and run from the garage of the family home but is now located in the heart of Stockport.

Stockport Gin is run by Paul and Cheryl and they pretty much do the lot themselves from selecting the botanicals, making the gin, bottling, labelling by hand and then selling it.

The ‘tour’

If you check out the web site you’ll see that the tour consists of: a double Gin & Tonic on arrival, an insight into the history of gin as well as learning all about Stockport Gin and how Paul and Cheryl have got to their current business position, a second double gin a look at the distillery room and an opportunity to taste each of the current range of gins.

Added to that Paul’s easy style of delivery the availability of soft drinks for those that want and you have a decent way to pass a couple of hours.

As you might expect products are available to buy (with a 10% discount). Also available online and via the distillers shop front store.

We bought some the magnificent and award winning Twist of Lime edition along with the new Gunpowder edition.

In the past we have visited whisky distilleries in Scotland, vineyards in Yorkshire (really) and a couple of the Port wine cellars and production facilities in Portugal and although this is a small set up and tour we found it just as enjoyable and informative as those other visits.