MyMarlow recently visited “Folium Bar and Gin School” – an exciting new venue based at Harleyford Marina. In short, the venue is a bar, which is open to the public – you can drive, walk or cycle there. But as we found out, there is much more going on, with gin tasting sessions, cocktail making.. and even gin making classes!
Folium Gin have set up Harleyford as their “tasting centre” and we met up with Paul Bolton , one of the founders. Paul told us how the gin itself is distilled from grapes, not grain, in Portugal and crafted using Chinese tea for a unique flavour – more details on their website. We tried their signature serve – where the gin is is served with Fever Tree Mediterranean Tonic, grapes, peppercorns and rosemary, and it was delicious drink!
The Bar
The setting for the bar is superb, right on the marina. Yes- we now have a truly riverside drinks venue! It was all very relaxed, inside (on the first floor overlooking the marina) or outside – a great place to unwind or meet up with friends.
The bar of course has many gin based drinks, classic gin cocktails, plus their own creations crafted to match the botanicals used to make the gin. That aside, there’s a decent range of beer, wine, spirits, soft drinks, mocktails and hot drinks if gin is not your thing.
Opening hours (in short daily to 10pm), but check here: https://www.foliumgin.com/botanical-bar/
Location: https://www.foliumgin.com/visiting-the-bar/
Gin Tasting sessions
Having explained how gin is made, the Folium team talk through how different botanicals are used to create the various flavours and how you can use garnishes to best effect.
They set you up 3 servings of Folium Gin with a different tonics, mixers and garnishes and work with you to create your own unique set of G&T mixes. www.foliumgin.com/gin-tasting/
Cocktail making classes
You are guided through the background and concepts of mixology & cocktail making, and each guest will makes and drinks three cocktails : www.foliumgin.com/cocktail-making/
Gin Making
The chance to work with master distillers to create your very own bottle of Gin. Coming very soon, contact Folium for more details.
And more…?
Paul outlined a whole host of other ideas he has to make use of the space, various events , tastings and more. We look forward to seeing how it all develops!
We had a fantastic evening, having great drinks in a venue which was new to us – it was fabulous!
Website: https://www.foliumgin.com/
Here’s a few photos from our visit
