Name: A and D Blog Name: The Gin Bible Blog URL: www.theginbible.com Location: Leicestershire / Rutland but currently exploring gin around the world! Blog Summary: In a world full of hundreds of botanicals and thousands of destinations, The Gin Bible is our way of sharing our passion for both gin and for travel. We don't claim to be anything but simple, down-to-earth, and non pretentious gin lovers; we’re certainly not gin geniuses’ and we’re certainly not botanical scholars. What we are though, is passionate. We’re embarking on a 'round the world' trip, one gin at a time, and we'd love for you to follow our journey. 3 continents and 12 countries, it's going to be one hell of an adventure... How did you get into gin? Both of us have always been partial to the odd G&T but our passion was really ignited when we began our relationship. After a few months of passive aggressively living in neighbouring flats, it took a first date – that turned into an eleven drink-long bar crawl – to realise we had a lot in common. Travel, food, and gin. Just as quick as the romance began, so did the strengthening of the relationship. With both of us experiencing personal issues, it was these shared passions helped us to navigate the ups and downs of ‘final year’. When one of us was sad? Gin. When we had a reason to celebrate? Gin. A free Wednesday night? Gin. And whilst this might sound more like a confession at Alcoholics Anonymous, this mutual penchant caused us to laugh together, to spend time together, and inspired us to create something special together. And so, The Gin Bible was born. What else do you do as well as gin blogging? Alongside gin blogging, we both have a range of other hobbies and passions so, and we're sure that many others would agree, we feel like we barely have time to think! Thankfully, with the role of creating interesting and whimsical content for TGB, A actually has a rather strong passion for writing. Alongside this, you can often find her with her head in a book, at the gym, grabbing coffee with friends, or probably somewhere shopping and spending money... Luckily, D's hobbies also lend themselves perfectly to The Gin Bible. With a background in marketing and being an enthusiastic website builder, it is thanks to this passion and expertise that The Gin Bible is able to own such a sleek website and deliver creative social media posts. When he's not turning his eyes square at a computer screen, D is a big music buff and boasts quite an impressive portfolio of artists that he has been fortunate to see live. He is definitely in charge of creating the playlist for our 6 month long road trip!  A and D combining interests with some gin and live music! Who is your blog for and why should gin lovers have a read and follow you?
The reason that we started The Gin Bible was because we regularly found ourselves receiving texts from friends and family asking for a gin recommendation before they ordered. Being so fortunate to live in a world where modern technology enables us to connect so easily, we realised the potential we had in front of us; we could share our passion for gin well past our loved ones. But the most important thing for us was that we wanted to keep the fundamental values the same. We liked that people trusted us and that people valued our opinion. Instead of allowing bartenders to push their most expensive bottle on them, our nearest and dearest relied on us to be completely honest and unbiased. And that's what we have done. We promise that we will never sacrifice our honesty and authenticity by being bought or by advertising things that we don’t believe in. If we don’t like something, we’ll tell you, we will never pretend that we do… Honestly is our only policy. The Gin Bible will always be unpretentious and aimed at people like ourselves; people who aren’t big-wigs in the juniper world but people who enjoy life, and happen to enjoy the odd gin as well. We're not too particular about where it derives from, and we certainly couldn't distill our own batch, but we do like to have a laugh, we do like to have fun, and we certainly like gin. And if you find yourself agreeing with us, then we think The Gin Bible might just be right up your street... What gins would you always have on your gin shelf? One gin that we have always had a soft spot for us Hepple Gin. For those of you that haven’t been fortunate to try it, there is only one way that we can describe it - Hepple hits you like a truth in a web of lies. There are no false pretences, there are no overpowering botanicals thrown in just to appeal to the masses. It’s not pretending to be anything it’s not. It’s not trying to taste like an exotic fruit or a well-stocked spice rack, it’s a juniper based gin and you can taste it's integrity with every sip. We were lucky enough to be face-to-face with co-creator Valentine Warner when we first sampled this gin. When we uttered the words ‘honest’ and ‘real’, a genuine happiness radiated from his face. He was aware that after one sip, we knew that Hepple have not only achieved what they had set out to, they have smashed it out the park... If you had to choose a favourite way to serve gin, what would it be? This could be a tricky one... Although we'd both agree that the quintessential G&T is without a doubt the best way to serve gin, we do have different tastes when it comes to the type of gin, tonic, and garnish. A's favourite tipple would be a gin with a traditional juniper infusion, served with a slimline tonic, a wedge of grapefruit and a sprig of rosemary (these make it healthy right... right?!) With an undeniably sweet tooth, D's favourite would have to be something sweet and something fruity, probably Brockmans Gin. Another fan of 'healthy' garnish, his Brockmans is preferably paired with a standard tonic and served with a couple of blueberries and a nice chunky grapefruit wedge. Delicious. Do you have a favourite gin bar or gin event that you'd recommend to gin lovers? Again this is so hard because we’ve been to so many good ones and it is difficult to say just one that we’d recommend because they all have different attractive qualities. Although, purely for sentimental reasons, we often say that our favourite gin bar would probably what was once known as ‘The Old House’ in Sheffield. It was the bar that we ended up in on our first date and realised that we both wanted to explore the world together. It was the bar that we ended up in to celebrate our graduation from university. It was the bar that we ended up in when we poured over travel brochures and finalised our route. There has been a lot of precious memories there. We’ve been to other gin bars that we could recommend but ‘The Old House’ is just very special to us. The reason for the quote marks is that it’s had a bit of a babe makeover in recent months, being renamed The Devonshire. Thankfully it still has the vast array of gin that first fell in love with, and over! What is your top tip for people just starting to discover gin? Don't be put off by the old 'mothers ruin' or settle for an unappetising Gordons' and tonic that was so 1960. The gin world is so incredibly vast and thoroughly deserves to be explored. There are fruity gins, spiced gins, and gins that have a little 'je ne sais quoi'. There is literally something for everyone. Yes, it may seem a bit overwhelming, but that's where we can help. The Gin Bible has reviewed gins from all walks of life and with over 120 tried and tested so far, you’re welcome. Do you have a top tip for aspiring gin bloggers? Enjoy it. For us, it isn't about how big we can get, or trying to conquer the world - hence why we've always been keen to keep ourselves anonymous. The Gin Bible is our way of doing something that we love, together. That's the most important thing for us. So our one piece of advice would be to enjoy yourselves. Enjoy exploring the world of gin, and have fun! What do you think is next in the gin industry? Gin is a spirit with a somewhat chequered past, but an extremely bright future. We think that it is its diversity that makes it so special; each bottle is essentially a combination - a potpourri almost - of spices, herbs, roots and berries that will be completely unique to itself. Gin is technically defined by these flavours, it’s something or other to do with botanicals but there are very few limits to the amount that can be used and the only one requirement is the humble juniper berry. So as long as people keep enjoying gin and keep being creative, the sky's the limit! It's exciting to say the least... Follow A and D on their 'round the world' gin trip and keep up to date with all their articles and recommendations on The Gin Bible. Comments are closed.
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