A festival all about craft gin? It was as if someone read our minds.
Travelling all the way from London, Junipalooza is a gin festival celebrating The Gin Foundry‘s first tipple in Melbourne.
Somewhat cheekily, this festival is running within a month of Australia’s own gin festival (and similarly titled) Juniperlooza. While the competing festivals battle it out for your hard-earned cash, we think that there is enough gin to go around. Locals are always welcoming of another drink (or two), after all. As the Old El Paso girl says, ‘why don’t we have both’.
Junipalooza was held in North Melbourne’s Meat Market. The heritage listed hall and event space, reminiscent of a fancy barn, was a great location to enjoy a Sunday session. Distillers from across the world were there to show off their gin, some for the very first time.
The Gin Queen (right)
We particularly enjoyed some of the unusual and non-traditional varieties being crafted within Australia. Melbourne’s own Gin Queen hosted master classes in Australian gin production, giving us some insight into what went into each bottle. We loved that native Australian herbs and plants, such as the lemon myrtle and Tasmanian pepper berry, are being embraced by our local distillers to create something truly exceptional.
Burn City Smokers were on hand with all the BBQ’d meat (and mushroom) needs of hungry drinkers. It was a great experience to meet the markers behind each gin and learn a little bit more about their story.
This was a sold-out event and we have no doubt that they will be back again soon for more gin adventures in Melbourne.
– Tomas
Tomas Zagoda is a filmmaker, writer, coffee addict and tall person who does not play basketball. You can follow him @TomasZagoda
Follow Junipalooza’s return next year on The Gin Foundry. For more gin antics throughout the year, read The Gin Queen.
