The Bombay Sapphire is a 182-carat gemstone from Sri Lanka that silent film actor Douglas Fairbanks gave his wife Mary Pickford as a sign of love. It is also the name of a British-manufactured gin produced since 1987 in accordance with a recipe devised in 1761 by Thomas Dakin.

Surrounded by greenery, its distillery is in rural Hampshire, between Overton and Whitchurch. The River Test, one of the finest chalk streams of the UK, famous for its crystal clear waters flows through the site. Once a corn mill, then a paper factory, the Bombay Sapphire distillery is one of the most charming examples of adaptive reuse of the last few years.

Thomas Heatherwick’s studio, recently awarded for the amazing reconversion project of London’s Coal Drop Yard, designed this sustainable, imaginative, and soulful project.

The entire site revolves around two spectacular greenhouses emerging out of the production building. It hints to Bombay Sapphire's peculiar distillation - the infusion of the gin with vapours of ten botanicals, which are grown and showcased inside the greenhouses. These are Java pepper, grains of paradise, Chinese cinnamon, bitter almonds, liquorice, orris, angelica, coriander, lemon peel, and, of course, juniper.

A UK national drink, gin is experiencing a new renaissance and becoming a kind of secular religion. Like any other religion, it has its churches (gin bars), its celebration days (gin festivals), and its pilgrimages (gin tours).Get in touch with British Tours for a visit to the Laverstoke Mill gin distillery, which can be combined with the beautiful region of the Cotswolds. Or ask British Tours about a gin tour in London.

Post by Caterina, British Tours