We were in Northern Ireland over the weekend for a wedding and spent a night at the beautiful Galgorm Resort.
The hotel facilities were great, but the area which caught our eye was the Gin Library in the Conservatory bar.
Boasting over 300 gins from around the world (and apparently nearing 400), it offers a bewildering range of brands and flavours. We were familiar with a good number of them, but still a lot of which we’d never heard.
It’s also the only bar we’ve experienced which has a Gin menu and a Tonic Menu; serious stuff!
As it stood there were far too many options to choose from, hence we asked the barman for “two interesting G&Ts” and left it up to him to interpret the request.
The first was a Bulldog Gin, served with 6 o’clock Indian Tonic Water, Lemon and Star Anise.
We’ve tasted Bulldog previously and the tonic complemented it perfectly with the strong citrus flavours complementing the freshness of the gin. The Star Anise was a great touch as it give little bursts of flavour each time you took a sip.
The other gin was Bobby’s Schiedam Dry Gin, again served with 6 o’clock tonic and orange slices.
Bobby’s is a Dutch Gin and the traditional botanicals are complemented with Indonesian spices including clove, coriander and cinnamon.
It would have been good to taste the gin neat to get a full sense of the flavour. The spice was evident on the nose of the neat spirit however and the gin and tonic was delicious!
Overall, we were very impressed with the Gin Library and will definitely be back when in the area.
One thing we did notice was the absence of Firkin Gin from the menu but contact details were duly passed on so maybe another Scottish Gin will make it to the Library menu!
Braw Spirit 