Strange as it may sound, I drank gin for the first time in November 2020. I do not have an explanation why this happened so late in my life, at the age of 44, but the important thing is that it happened.

This experience made want to try making my own gin, which, given that I studied alcohol-making in college, wasn’t such a far-fetched idea. I began reading and learning a lot about the history of gin, the most frequently used spices and distilling techniques, and then – just like the principle of upthrust for Archimedes – the recipe of my gin also occured to me in the bathtub.

I used some brave volunteers (aka: friends) to try the different versions of the gin, and worked my way up from receiving opinions from a polite „this is drinkable” to „this is *** amazing”. This was the version that I sent a sample of to a British expert who, along with some of his colleagues provided me with a very detailed professional analysis and advised that I send it to various international competitions.

This was when I realised that this experience which started out as a hobby took a more serious turn. I modified the recipe according to the experts’ opinions and participated in the Las Vegas Global Spirit Awards in 2021, where I was placed in the silver category and the World Gin Awards in England in the same year, where I was placed in the gold category. Or, to be more precise: not me, but my gin.