Hout Bay Harbour Distillery

Last weekend we decided to drive through to Hout Bay. We visited the Hout Bay Market as I have never been there before. I have only heard how amazing it is.  

On the way to the market we came across this little distillery. Being keen gin lovers, and as I am a food and wine blogger in Cape Town, we were drawn into Hout Bay Distillery.  

It is a small family run business.  We met Mike and his daughter Emily for the tasting and got chatting for over an hour.  Mike is extremely friendly, knowledgeable and passionate about the two small batch gins that they produce.

Hout Bay Harbour Distillery produce two gins, the Harbour Dry (43% alcohol) and the Navy Strength (a whopping 57% alcohol volume!)

At first we tasted Harbour Dry neat, which I had never done before - we normally have tonic with our gin, right?   Mike let us smell a freshly crushed juniper berry before tasting the gin. We could then easily identify it in the taste of the gin.  He then added their home made tonic (which was delicious, but unfortunately not for sale to the public as yet)

It was such a great experience for my food and wine blogging in Cape Town site as we didn't feel rushed to leave.  Mike and Emily were super friendly and chatty, and we even had a taste of their elderberry G&T slush.  This is  something I could have drank all day long, it was THAT yummy.
I would definitely recommend you pay Hout Bay Harbour Distillery a visit when you're next in the area.