The Spirit of Manchester Distillery

I went on the 15th February with my friend as I had bought her the gin making experience for her Christmas present. The venue is absolutely amazing, so much thought into the whole space. Great for a meal, drink, tasting or gin making. On the gin making you get a little talk about the background to Manchester Gin, which was short and sweet. The gin making room and setup was fab - you each have a little distillery. There is so many flavours to add to your gin, and mine surprisingly tasted great! The big downfall for me and my friend was how seriously it was taken, numerous people were there with friends and partners who wanted a little laugh. It really would put me off recommending it to anyone - numerous times we as a group were told to be quiet, listen .. I understand that it is your gin and an expensive day but the concept is simple if you follow the instructions on the paper and as advised flavour your gin to what you like the taste of with some advice from the two guys taking it you should end up with a nice gin! I feel with a little more fun feeling to the 2hrs would make a really great experience - our male guide with the long tied back hair really was quite rude and did take the fun out of the day.

I booked this for my sister-in-law as a birthday present and it really didn’t disappoint. I’ve been on a lot of gin tours and they can be a bit formulaic but this one was different and much more personal to the distillery. James provided really great service and of course the gin itself is delicious, which always helps!

I’ve been a big fan of this bar/ restaurant since it opened and highly recommend it for both food and drinks. Keep up the good work guys.

The tour appears designed for small groups and benefits from this. The host was very good with lots of interesting observations on the development of Manchester gin and indeed Mancherster in general.

The £25 is decent value. It includes a full G & T and as these on the bar menu have a price point circa £8 - £9 you are off to a good start. 5 more tasting glasses are provided as part of the tour and are all very good in their own way.

All in all a good way to spend an hour.

Booked onto the distillery tour and tasting for my mum's christmas present. Didn't disappoint! Delicious g&t on arrival. The tour was short but extremely informative and has a lovely back story to the business. Tasting was exceptional and our guide was very knowledgeable about the different gins we tried. Decor was gorgeous too, I'll definitely be back to try out the restaurant. Would highly recommend for any gin lover.

We booked a distillery tour when visiting Manchester for the weekend. As a gin lover, I thought it was only appropriate!

Our tour was booked for 5:45pm (or so we thought!), so we arrived a little bit early at 5:30pm. We were seated at a table and given a complimentary bottle of water whilst we waited. After about 10 minutes we were asked to confirm the time of our tour and we advised 5:45pm, only to realise (and on re-checking our confirmation email) that it was in fact at 5pm. I had even noted it in my diary, so it was completely our fault that we were late. The next tour wasn't until 7pm, which we wouldn’t have been able to make, because we had booked dinner for 7:30pm.

This is when our expectations were entirely succeeded! ‘Ste’, came over and offered to do a private distillery tour and tasting for us so that we didn’t miss out, and we were made to feel like VIPs! The building which houses the distillery is stunning and full of character and the tour was brilliant. The story as to how Manchester Gin came about is really interesting, but I won’t go into too much detail here so as to not spoil it for anyone who hasn’t visited. It is very heart-warming. 'Ste' was really engaging with a great sense of humour and is very knowledgeable about gin. He is also exceptionally passionate about the distillery and its owners; Seb and Jen. We even got a brief glimpse of Seb during our tasting.

We sampled a delicious variety of gins that were unlike any we have tasted before. It is just a shame that we couldn’t stick around longer to have a drink at the bar (THREE LITTLE WORDS) or enjoy something from the restaurant where the menu includes ingredients used in their gin such as coriander and lemon. We did treat ourselves with something to try at home though, and there is always next time.

We had a fantastic experience, which wouldn't have been made possible without ‘Ste’s’ hospitality.

Highly recommended and not to be missed!

My mum and I went on the gin distillery tour, making, and tasting session this past weekend and had a fabulous time. There was a medium-sized group of people and Jackson was great, so informative and funny throughout.
The experience of adding ingredients and making our own gin was fantastic and the full-size bottle you make was beautiful with little labels to stick on and personalize. If you are looking for a good birthday gift or experience day I would highly recommend it and the bar attached is great and has a fab atmosphere.

Great to hear the story of this fledgling small business and get to taste some of the amazing gin made on site. James was a brilliant host - enthusiastic, knowledgeable and funny. This was a Christmas present from my daughter and we both really enjoyed our visit. Would highly recommend!

We did the gin making experience. It was great from start to finish. James was brilliant and told the story of how it started and made the whole experience great. We had a meal in the restaurant which was excellent. Food was amazing, loved the cocktails. All the staff were so lovely and friendly and seemed so happy in their work. That's a rare find these days. I would highly recommend doing the Gin Making, it is well worth it, or if you just want food and drinks, try the restaurant, you won't be disappointed. Thanks James for the laughs.

My Husband and I finally got to use our Xmas present from our son last weekend.
What a fantastic afternoon it was, we were the only two booked in for this which did make the afternoon extra special.
James was absolutely brilliant the whole way through, especially with his funny stories, it is obvious that he loves his job and the people he works for.
Can't wait to taste our own gin.
Our afternoon was finished off with a lovely Sunday roast in the restaurant.

I was bought the Gin making experience for my birthday. Being a huge fan of the raspberry infused Gin I couldn’t wait to come and make my own. We arrived early so we sat in the bar area and had a Gin before we were greeted by Jamie our host for the afternoon. We were given a glass of the signature Gin to take through with us before we started on some Gin tasting.
Jamie was very knowledgeable and had some funny stories to tell along the way, he was also very helpful when it came to choosing which flavours we were going to use to make our Gin and advised which spices/flavours were good to match some of the ones we’d already chosen.
We were given another Gin of our choice and also a sample of the new Rum they are selling.
The whole experience took around 2.5 hours and we went into the restaurant (three little words) afterwards and had a lovely roast dinner. The staff were very helpful as I had a gluten intolerance but this was no problem for them.
The best thing about this experience is that Manchester Gin will keep your recipe for years so you can re order your bottle of gin online.
I would definitely recommend this experience and I’m looking forward to returning for next years birthday to make another one.