Best gin holidays

Kinloch Lodge, a luxurious but homely hotel on the shores of Skye’s Loch na Dal, is run with precision by the Macdonald family. With that shoreline in front and nothing but dense forest behind, the hotel is a forager’s paradise, the ideal base from which to stride out in search of botanicals. With help from the Isle of Skye Distillers, Kinloch Lodge now offers guests the opportunity to turn their treasure into homemade gin. The experience includes three nights at the hotel (bedrooms come with water or mountain views and are decorated in the colours of the local landscapes), dinner every night, a foraging session with Kinloch’s ghillie and a three-hour gin-making class, with a bottle of homemade gin to take away.

What to eat: local Skye suppliers and seasonal produce define the menu at Kinloch – try the Loch Eishort langoustine and lobster macaroni cheese with wild garlic crumb.

What to drink: gin cocktails using your gleanings from the foraging session.

Where to stay: from cosy doubles to expansive suites, all rooms are light-filled, with views across Loch na Dal and the sea, or grand Kinloch Hill.

Check availability at booking.com

Ramsbury, Wiltshire

From £130 per night including breakfast, check availability at booking.com

Stretching across nearly 20,000 acres of prime Wiltshire, Berkshire and Hampshireland, the Ramsbury Estate aspires to have no negative impact on its surroundings. That means making single-estate gin (and vodka) using their own wheat and barley, water from a private, chalk-filtered source, and home-grown quince for a signature flavour.

As well as the distillery (which offers tours), there’s an on-site smokehouse (used to cold-smoke wild venison and chalk-stream trout) and a 300-year-old coaching inn, The Bell.

What to eat: The kitchen at The Bell serves Ramsbury meat, fish (try the Ramsbury gin-cured salmon), vegetables, fruit and even estate-produced honey. Sunday might include the likes of pigeon crown, pearl barley, Ramsbury estate baby carrots & red wine jus

What to drink: a grassy, floral spirit made ever-so-slightly spicy with a touch of cinnamon, Try Ramsbury Estate Gin in a G&T with a slice of green apple and a wedge of lime.

Where to stay: Book one of the nine cossetting bedrooms above the inn or in the renovated coach house.

Check availability at booking.com

Bombay Sapphire Distillery, Hampshire

From £115 per night, including breakfast, check availability at booking.com

Hidden deep in the rolling Hampshire countryside, among the picture-perfect flint and thatch cottages of Whitchurch, you’ll find Laverstock Mill. With a history dating back to the Domesday book, this was once a working mill making the paper for banknotes, but now, this complex of beautiful red-brick Grade II listed buildings is home to Bombay Sapphire.

Wander across the courtyard from the glasshouses, and you can really immerse yourself in the botanical room, where you’re encouraged to touch, smell and taste the carefully-sourced botanicals, before going through to the still room and seeing the process in action. You can also try your hands at mixology with a gin cocktail masterclass where you'll learn how to make two different cocktails.

What to eat: Make a weekend of it by booking into horse-racing haunt turned local gastro pub The Pheasant Inn, about a 30-minute drive away, where pub classics (Pheasant Ale-battered fish and chips, beef burgers, chicken kiev) sit on the menu alongside more unusual seafood dishes.

What to drink: Try your hands at mixology in the distillery with a gin cocktail masterclass where you'll learn how to make two different cocktails while sipping on a martini.

Where to stay: choose from 11 individually styled rooms at the Pheasant.

Check availability at booking.com

Rosewood, London

From £442 per night, check availability at booking.com

The copper-topped gin bar at Holborn Dining Room, part of the Rosewood London hotel is one of the most impressive we’ve seen; it’s stocked with 500 gins, 30 tonics and 14,000 possible G&T pairings to choose from. You’ll need a couple of days to sample just a tiny fraction of that hefty collection.

What to eat: Acclaimed chef Calum Franklin's refined seasonal, British fare is a must-try: think dishes such as gin-cured salmon with Guinness soda bread; 50-day-aged Cornish rare breed sirloin with béarnaise sauce and Pump Street Chocolate and orange tart.

What t0 drink: Try HDP's own gin, created in collaboration with Cornish distillery Tarquin's. It's a classic juniper-led London Dry gin, with botanicals of rock samphire, coriander and lemon.

Where to stay: Rosewood's sleek, plush rooms make for a perfect bolthole if you're planning a city break in London. If you're looking to splash out, book one of their luxury suites with a personalised butler service.

Check availability at booking.com

The Henley Distillery, Henley-on-Thames

From £15 for a tour

The Henley Distillery truly earns its ‘small batch’ and ‘hand crafted’ badges. A tour and tasting package provides a fascinating insight into how a small artisan distillery operates, with plenty of chances to try the gin, too. Currently housed in one large barn, the tour showcases the entire gin-making process from start to finish: beginning with the distillery’s traditional methods using copper stills, on to exploring the aromatics used to create each bottle, all the way through to bottling and packaging.

Both the passion for the craft and hands-on approach to producing top-quality gin are clear, with master distiller Jacob mixing each recipe in a small still to perfect the recipe first, before gradually scaling up. The traditional methods (no automated machinery here) are clearly working, with both the classic dry and rhubarb & orange gins winning top awards at the Spirits Masters just five months after launch.

What to drink: at the beginning of the tour you’ll get a chance to sample each of three Henley Distillery own gins neat and then with a little tonic (to taste how the flavours transform) before picking your favourite and from a wide selection of mixers to make your ultimate G&T to sip during the tour.

What to eat: stop off in Wallingford en route to the distillery for a meal at Five Little Pigs. Share a selection of the excellent small plates, from indulgent ‘Piggy pale rarebit’ to an outstanding scotch egg worth the trip alone. Don’t miss the signature dessert of a doughnut and creamy vanilla dipping custard.

Where to stay: the nearby Bottle & Glass Inn (just a 30-minute stroll through the surrounding fields) has three cosy rooms. Room 3 has a king-size bed and freestanding roll-top bath in the bedroom, plus an en suite shower wet room. Breakfast is included, including fresh pastries or a cooked breakfast using local produce.

Check availability at booking.com

Wild Thyme Spirits, Isle of Colonsay

£1600/4 people

Rugged coastlines, unspoilt beaches and the chance to spot rare corncrakes await as you disembark the ferry at the remote Hebridean island of Colonsay, home to the Wild Thyme Spirits distillery. Book the latter’s Gin Lover’s Retreat (for groups of four) and you can settle in for a full-board weekend stay in their well-appointed lodge.

Make the most of Wild Thyme’s gin collection (200 bottles and counting, as well as their own Colonsay Gin, produced on the island), enjoy pre-dinner gin cocktails, a gin tasting and the chance to explore the island’s wild interior.

What to eat: think robust, warming fare such as roast leg of lamb stuff studded with garlic and rosemary and served with dauphinoise potatoes, or ham hock butter with hot toast.

What to drink: settle down in the evening with a snifter of their fruity bramble liqueur.

Where to stay: There's two comfortable double bedrooms and a shared lounge complete with wood-burning stove, jigsaws and board games.

Check availability at wildthymespirits.com

Spirit of Masham, Yorkshire

From £500 per night, check availability at mrandmrssmith.com

More and more distilleries are setting up their own ‘gin schools’ where visitors can learn how to distil their own bespoke spirit. One such spot is Spirit of Masham, in Yorkshire, which offers the chance to take over one of its copper stills and choose from 100 different botanicals to blend your own take on a London dry gin. Distillers will be on hand to offer advice on ingredients, and at the end of the three-hour experience you’ll have a 70cl bottle to take home.

What to drink: Try their unusual Chocolate Malt Barley gin, which uses chocolate malt barley, cocoa, coconut, rosehio and Italian coffee to create a grown up gin with delicious bitter chocolate notes.

Where to stay: Palatial country house hotel Grantley Hall includes everything from a luxury spa to manicured 30-acre parklands, and Michelin-starred dining courtesy of head chef Shaun Rankin.

Check availability at mrandmrssmith.com

Salcombe Distilling Co, Devon

From £346.96 per night, check availability at booking.com

Down in Devon, Salcombe Distilling Co will help you craft a bespoke blend in your own individual copper still with all the citrus, herbal, floral and spice botanicals that they have to work with. The pros will give you an overview of how they make their gin, and teach you the ways to create a balanced and delicious sip. Then, you’ll bottle and label your creation before finishing the day in the distillery’s waterside bar to taste the final result and play around with different garnishes and tonics.

What to drink: try the Marmajito – their take on a mojito – with Salcombe Gin, blood orange marmalade, lemon, mint and elderflower tonic.

Where to stay: Salcombe Harbour Hotel makes the most of a gorgeous waterfront location with gorgeous sea views and spacious rooms decked out in nautical shades and stripes.

Check availability at booking.com

The Distillery, Notting Hill

From £125 per night, check availability at booking.com

For an urban gin experience make a beeline for 186 Portobello Road in West London, home to The Distillery (makers of the acclaimed Portobello Road Gin) – and its lodgings, bar and gin school. At the distillery’s ‘Ginstitute’, a ‘ginstructor’ will give you a quick recap on gin’s sordid history before taking you to the distillery’s blending rooms, where you’ll combine gin cocktails with blending your own bespoke batch of the juniper stuff to take home (as well as a bottle of Portobello Road gin). Make sure you also visit The Resting Room bar, and check out the Distillery’s eclectic range of house cocktails.

What to eat: Try the dirty martini mussels with gin, vermouth, green olives, cream lemon, parsley and garlic.

What to drink: Sip a Poddington Negroni with asparagus vodka, Campari, sweet vermouth and carrot flower garnish.

Where to stay: If you’re feeling too well lubricated to head home, book a stay in one of the distillery’s stylish bedrooms; these come with choice views of Portobello Road, Rough Trade-curated vinyl playlists on the record player and sharing martinis.

Check availability at booking.com

Kingsland Locke, Dalston

From £72 per night, check availability at booking.com

This just-opened, affordable lifestyle hotel in edgy Dalston – an area well served by restaurants and nightlife – has its own sustainably managed microbrewery and gin distillery. Jim & Tonic’s gin distillery – based on the principles of “reduce, reuse and regenerate” – produces four punchy gins, and the cocktail game is strong here, too.

What to eat: The restaurant and bar, Kraft Dalston, is the east London outpost of Le Bab and features full- and slider-sized kebabs cooked on a wood-fired robata and served with sourdough flatbreads. The low-and-slow pork shawarma kebab sees organic free-range pork cooked for 15 hours and served with sweet pickled cucumber, chermoula mayo and a foraged herb mix; a meaty lamb ‘madras’ kebab comes with balti mix and madras yogurt; and the vegetarian paneer kebab is spiced and served on a beetroot and coconut purée with pickled cucumber, crispy onions, curry mayo and coriander. There are also limited-edition kebab specials,snacks and meze dishes, such as the meat butter naan topped with za’atar and hummus, peanut curry pesto and lemon.

Where to drink: A bottle of Jim & Tonic Kraft hopped grapefruit gin will brighten up your drinks cabinet.

Where to stay: The public areas include co-working spaces, and the apartment-style rooms have plush sofas and fully functioning kitchens, making it a cosy and buzzy hybrid of home and hotel.

Check availability at booking.com

Merry Harriers, Surrey Hills

From £195 per night

Set in the small picture-postcard village of Hambledon, at first glance The Merry Harriers looks like a regular country pub. But cross over the road and you’ll find five glamped-up shepherd’s huts set around a tranquil pond, with an uninterrupted view of the rolling Surrey Hills in the distance.

The pub has teamed up with micro-distillery Village Spirit Collective next door to create a bespoke Ginfluencer overnight experience. This includes a tour of the distillery from owner Ian Cox, plus a masterclass in creating a bespoke gin. Ian has isolated 20 botanicals (including lesser-known ones such as orris root, angelica and cubeb pepper) that you can taste individually and rate for preference, then create your own blend from your favourites. The experience lasts from a one-hour taster to a full two- to three-hour masterclass and includes an overnight stay, two-course dinner and full breakfast.

What to eat: All of the pub classics are present and correct: homemade burgers with chilli relish, crisp-battered fish ’n’ chips with chunky tartare, and generous slabs of ham hock terrine with punchy piccalilli. There are also a few more refined dishes – beetroot carpaccio with local goat’s cheese and candied hazelnuts, sea bass with crushed potatoes and salsa verde, and a delicately spiced vegan squash massaman curry.

What to drink: Local drinks are well represented, with wine from Albury Organic Vineyard, Crafty Brewing Company beers from up the road in Godalming, and Vann Lane Gin from the distillery next door.

Where to stay: Inside, the huts have been furnished with luxurious king-size beds and walk-in shower rooms. Underfloor heating and wood burners keep things cosy on cold nights, and there’s an outdoor fire pit for late-night summer lounging. There’s a fridge to chill drinks and food (stocked with wine for guests’ arrival), snacks and a coffee pod machine. At the back of the large, sunny beer garden, you’ll find the pub’s other residents – a herd of llamas, whom guests can accompany on treks, picnics or just grab sunset selfies with (they are extremely curious and friendly).

Check availability at merryharriers.com