20/06/2015
What is Junipalooza? Well it’s organised by The Gin Foundry, held in London and it’s probably the best gin festival in the world. There’s no corporate carve up, no brand managers and no dolly birds. It’s where gin fans get to talk to distillers, and distillers get to talk shite. For hours on end.
This was not only our first Junipalooza, it was our first festival outside Ireland and we arrived carrying presents – not only our Blackwater No.5 Gin but a special – a lovely new Juniper Cask Gin, which sold out.
London is a great big tossed salad of a town, so it’s the perfect place to meet distillers from Switzerland, Spain, Wales, Scotland, England, Germany and Sweden – it was also a good place to meet prospective Irish gin distillers. After all in 2014 we were at Junipalooza as paying customers, so to return one year later and sell out was quite a buzz.
Distillers are also a generous bunch, so lots of bottles were swapped – some were even bought – after all there were bottles and expressions of gin here not found anywhere else.
Will we return next year? Yes! Will we be the only distillery from the Republic? If the number of people contacting us looking for information is anything to go by, in 2016 we won’t be alone.
