YetAnotherGin

This is a guestpost from the Gin Monkey

The A Fluid State festival returned for 2010 and for four days the tasting sessions transformed an East London building into a drinks and arts festival destination. Consisting of five spaces, each with a different experience inside there was certainly a lot to see and do.

Tickets were priced at £35 which covered admission, arrival cocktail, and one experience of your choice. We opted to go for the Fantasy Island experience as I had heard that the guys from Purl were bringing along some of their tricks and treats with them. Upon arrival we ‘checked in’ with the flight attendants and were given our boarding passes for Fantasy Island. I loved the airline theming, even though I did feel a bit sorry for the ‘flight attendants’ in their gold lame!

Next up was our welcome cocktail designed by Nick Strangeway, the King’s Brambling:

• 40ml King’s Ginger
• 10ml Lillet Rouge
• 1/4 Lime
• 5-6 Blackberries
• 150ml Chegworth Blackberry & Apple Juice

It was a good old-fashioned style punch (although I would expect nothing less from Strangeway) and was pretty damn tasty. Suitably lubricated it was time to head over to Fantasy Island. Once we’d entered it has to be said that I was glad I’d had a drink beforehand as three separate ‘performers’ asked us what our fantasies were…! Now I’m not sure how other people would fare at being asked this, but it made us feel awkward to say the least. After lots of trying to avoid the question I was subjected to one of those head massager thingys that look like a giant spider, and was what I can only describe as dusted by a girl with a very ticklish duster, much to the amusement of Tristan from Purl who was in the corner making the drinks…!

Shuffling very quickly over to the drinks area to escape the crazies, things started to get much more exciting and interesting! The team had indeed brought a few of their gadgets and gizmos over from Purl including a liquid nitrogen bath This was for the dragon’s breath popcorn which was so cold after being immersed in the bath it made you smoke at the mouth like a true dragon! Next it was back to the crazies and onto slaying an ‘actual’ dragon which involved me choosing an imaginary weapon and using it to slay a bloke with a cardboard dragon mask….back to the drinks area please!

The highlight of the Fantasy Island was the cocktail: a deconstructed Pina Colada! This consisted of an effervescent sorbet, with a pineapple leaf holding mint caviar and a pineapple jelly. Damn interesting and yummy, this was more like it, and I started to hope that thing were looking up!

After a brief performance where the improv guys put on masks and chanted a lot, and after making them become a human jenga tower (there were only four of them but they tried!) we tried some pineapple and pink pigeon crisps (pink pigeon is a rum apparently) and were more than ready to leave and explore the rest of the building!

We soon realised however that there was no communal area or bar area, there were only the other performance areas in the space. This would have been ok, however because we had already completed our experience there really wasn’t anything else to do unless we bought tokens. At £3 each these weren’t cheap and considering everything other than snacks and beer were 2 tokens each there was the potential that the cost could add up very quickly! However seeing as we had been given our entry tickets for free (thanks to Jaqueline at the Tasting Sessions!), myself and the @bourbonbaboon bought two tokens each so that we could participate in the Whisky and Gin flights in The Palm area.

The Whisky flight was first, and each one of the three whisky’s on offer was matched to improv Jazz provided by a trio from Ronnie Scott’s. This was interesting, but unfortunately we found it difficult to hear a word that the compare was saying which made it difficult to know what the hell it was that we were drinking! As a whisky novice I did struggle to get through such big shots of each, however luckily the @bourbonbaboon was on hand to help!

The Gin flight was (surprisingly) a lot more successful, and consisted of a Marguerite, a Pink Gin and a Gimlet. All were made with Plymouth Gin, were served in small tumbler glasses, and thankfully went down much more easily than the whisky.

At this point we said our goodbyes and left as it didn’t seem worth the money to buy more tokens. In hindsight we probably should have shared the Whisky and Gin flights between us and saved the other tokens to do another of the experiences, but that’s why hindsight is such a wonderful thing! Overall the experience was fun, even if a little bizarre. However I’m not sure how I would have felt if I had paid a total of £47 for the whole night…