Stargazing & Cocktails

It was 3rd time lucky on Friday 20 April for our Stargazing & Cocktails event. The weather finally played ball enabling Neil and Jane from Tring Astro to set up their telescopes outside the distillery. With them came Paul from Sirius Astronomy. ‘He drives around with cool stuff in his car’ according to his Twitter profile!

So what cool stuff is that? Well, the evening started with a bang, quite literally, with a rocket experiment in the car park. Then we all had a go at creating a vacuum and expanded a marshmallow in a syringe (you don’t want to know why, very gruesome) and as you can see there was space suits to try on. Just don’t expect Ben to serve gin cocktails dressed like that every week!

During all this activity our guests were served with two astronomically themed cocktails – The Martian and Jupiter's Eye. Campfire Gin marmalade and space dust garnish anyone?

If you fancy getting a telescope then Tring Astro is the place to go, they have a great website but you can also visit their Tring showroom on the Silk Mill Business Park. Or if you want to organise an astronomically themed party or workshop then contact Paul for more info.

Stargazing cocktails

The Martian

Serves 2

50ml Campfire London Dry Gin
40ml Midori melon
7.5ml Vanilla syrup
7.5ml Lime juice
2 Maraschino cherries
Ice

Add the ice and liquid ingredients to a cocktail shaker. Stir for 1 minute. Pop the cherry into the centre of a martini glass and gently pour the liquid over it.

Jupiter's Eye

Serves 2

100ml Campfire London Dry Gin
50ml Carpano Antica Formula
10 dashes Cranberry bitters
Larkins Larder Ruby Gin Marmalade made with Campfire Gin
Lime garnish
200ml Indian tonic
Space dust
Ice

Half rim the glass with marmalade and dip in the space dust. Add the ice, Antica Formula, gin and bitters to a cocktail shaker. Stir for 1 minute and gently pour into the glass without disturbing the rim garnish, top with Indian tonic. Add a slice of lime and drink from the space dust side.