Tom & Tonics at Bar20; a taste tickling Tuesday tonic

What’s in a name?   I’ve banged on about name badges enough and you’ll be pleased to know that for our Rendezvous Club events, the gloves are off….well at least the name badges are.

The inspiration for our Gin event popped up during a rainy Tuesday chat.  What’s not to like about Gin & Tonic we asked after the first gin….Gin & Train sets – nope too Rod Stewart,  Gin & Tolstoy …too War & Peace, what about Gin & Tuesdays?  Tuesday is such a perky day of the week. I soon progressed to Gin & the City after adding Bar20 as the venue and after we joined forces with Thomas Dakin the event became Tom & Tonics.  What’s in a name; rather a lot of fun…actually.

So on this perky Tuesday, thirty Rendezvous Club members and their friends either took a stroll from their City-based offices or drove across town for our first City event, our first Gin event and our second badges-off event.

Rendezvous Club encourages brands to directly engage with our discerning members and we were lucky enough to get hold of Alix Walker, the charasmatic gin curator responsible for the brand new Thomas Dakin gin to give our Members a talk about all things gin. Alix talked us through the gin itself, its inspiration and, of course, the perfect serve.

Dakin’s botanicals are intriguing whilst being very traditional; there are eleven in total with three of them remaining the Master Distiller’s secret: juniper, English coriander seeds, orange peel, grapefruit, cubebs, liquorice root, angelica and, rather uniquely, red cole (horseradish.) Making it almost more authentically British than Dakin’s original gin (Thomas Dakin (the man) was an 18th century entrepreneur and the forefather of quality English gin.  An incredibly moreish gin with a fantastic history!

Other history-forming events from that night included one of our more dapper looking guests having his Instragram account and blog created by one our digital media savvy ladies.  Rather pleased he was that his photographs were already being liked by a very stylish following.  So pleased, he seemed to be keeping the rest of us, post-Gin tasting propped up on Cosmopolitans. Bar20s bar team including the appropriately skilled Max and Mariusz, seemed to just go with the flow as the noise level from our crowd got bigger.  The bar staff could hardly escape us wearing Thomas Dakin red aprons!

And if you want to recreate your own Gin event and connect your own reference with a T for Tonic here’s how Thomas Dakin suggest you make the modern masterpiece with a twist.  See you again soon.

How to serve the perfect Tom & Tonic

50ml Thomas Dakin gin
125ml premium quality tonic.  Fever-Tree Mediterranean or Indian.
A twist of orange peel to finish.