Gin Lovers don’t need much of an excuse to celebrate their love of gin but they they are always looking for opportunities to share that love and their gin collection. World Gin Day 2023 is just that opportunity!
In this guide updated for 2023, here’s what I’ll be talking about
- What and when is World Gin Day 2023
- Joining events organised for World Gin Day
- Gin Clubs and online gin tasting
- Hosting a World Gin party at home
- Commissioning your own Gin Cabinet
- Showcasing your Gin Collection in style
- Birthday Gin recommendation!
What and when is World Gin Day 2023?
World Gin Day is a global celebration of all things gin, held on the second Saturday in June! This year it’s Saturday 10th June. Simply put, it’s a day for everyone and anyone to celebrate and enjoy gin!
World Gin Day was born in 2009 as a way to bring friends together in Birmingham. Festivities quickly made their way to London and continued to grow throughout the UK until 2013 where it became a truly global celebration organised by Gin Monkey.
Great ways to spread the love on World Gin Day
Join an organised World Gin Day event
Head over to www.worldginday.com for a list of organised events hosted by brands and bars around the globe. From rare gin tasting events to dress up and dance evenings, it’s sure to be memorable. If you’re a bar or venue you can post your own event on the site too.
Subscribe to a gin club & join online World Gin tasting
If small batch, artisan gins are your thing and you’re not sure where to start then you could subscribe to a gin club. I’ve been a member of the Craft Gin Club for the past 3 years and absolutely adore receiving my gin box every 3 months.
This offering was one of my favourite’s; Tosh Gin, a wonderful craft gin from Tosh Distillery in the Czech Republic. It’s a beautiful well rounded gin laced with rowan berries and Czech poppy seeds, with a smooth finish.
The great thing about belonging to the club is that as well as the featured gin, you also receive a variety of tonics, syrups, garnishes and treats to accompany it, as well as a magazine explaining the various products and some fabulous cocktail recipes.
It’s a great way of gathering all of the necessary ingredients to host a Gin Party in your own unique style.
The Craft Gin Club regularly host online gin tasting events. They send out all the gins, cocktail ingredients, recipe cards and a cocktail shaker in advance and host a gin tasting experience with their master mixologists.
Host your own World Gin Day party in your back garden
In my view, the absolutely best way to enjoy gin is in the sunny back garden with friends. This year on Saturday 10th June that’s exactly what I’ll be doing….enjoying it with good friends in their garden.
I’ll be dipping into my Craft Gin Club for recipes and gathering ingredients to take along so that we can sample a cocktail together.
Why not invite some friends and ask them to bring their favourite gin or recipe for a relaxed, informal evening together. Style it up in your own unique way with some bunting, music, snacks and even create an outdoor drinks bar if you want to go the whole way.
Commission your own Gin Cabinet
Of course if you’re a true gin lover then why be restricted to celebrating that love just one day a year. In our house we are split clean down the middle…I’m a gin lover and my husband is a whisky lover and never the twain shall meet!
I’m not sure what attracted me to refinishing these modern burr walnut drinks cabinets ….my love of gin certainly played a part in it. I love to see all of my gin babies on show and the drinks preparation area really makes the evening seem special. But what I absolutely love is the pairing of the refurbished wood with metallics, blues, teals and greens.. they look so beautiful together.
They were the height of style and sophistication in the 1950s and 60s and there’s many a grandparent who will have owned one. Time has taken its toll though and in most cases the varnish has dulled with age and there’s a knock and scrape here and there.
Last year I created a fabulous Whisky Wardrobe to house my husband’s 100+ whiskies. Imagine opening a wardrobe to find it full of your favourite spirit!
This beauty was an Art Deco inspired commission I did for a couple in Scotland, designed to their unique style and specification. It’s a pretty large cabinet and was perfect for them, who like us, have a lots of gin AND whisky!
Showcase your gin collection in your unique way...
Make your Gin Cabinet a focal point
Back in the 1950s and 1960s when drinks cabinets first became popular in homes, it was all about form and function rather than decorative quality. Post war Britain saw a rise in utility furniture and gone was the glamour of the 1920s.
The 2020s have certainly made us appreciate our homes more and have seen a rise in consumers looking for unique statement furniture pieces that they can show off to friends and family. The drinks cabinet fits the bill perfectly.
If your drinks cabinet is going to be closed most of the time, then the design focus should be the outside, however modern drinks cabinets provide an excellent opportunity to make the inside stunning too!
Put your Gin Collection on Display
These beautiful glass fronted cabinets are a fabulous way to showcase your favourite drinks and accessories whilst entertaining friends and offer a really useful drinks preparation area too. Alternatively take the top doors off a Regency style drinks cabinet, make a feature of the inside with wallpaper and lights and showoff your drinks collection for all to see.
Disguise your Gin Collection
Want to keep your Gin Collection to yourself. How about hiding it in this cute mid century bookcase. Use the shelves for your glassware or other treasures.
Accessorise your Gin Cabinet with style
I love the accessories that come with some of these mid-century drinks cabinets; the cocktail pins and lemon squeezer are completely bespoke to those cabinets. Sadly many of them have been lost along the way and you can’t buy a vintage lemon squeezer for love nor money that will fit them. If your cocktail cabinet has these accessories, treasure them. They are a fabulous way to help showcase your gin.
If your cabinet is missing some of the original features, you can also style it up with vintage ice coolers and tongs available from Ebay and more contemporary accessories such as pineapples and shakers in gold, bronze and copper.
A pot of herbs or greenery with some fresh lemons and limes will also lift your scheme and add interest. All the better if guests can add them to their drinks.
When thinking about which gin bottles, pots of greenery and other accessories to add, I always try to match them with the colour of the handles, the legs or the metallic geometrics on the front of the cabinet.
Quick Tip: If your handles are gold, then grab a pot of gold spray paint and spray your herb pot to match. It’s easy to achieve a great look.
Whilst buying gin simply for its stylish bottle is not top of my list (it has to taste good too!), it’s certainly an attractive feature and a great way to showcase your gin cabinet. See my Birthday Wish List recommendation for an absolutely beautifully styled gin, perfect for accessorising my cabinets.
Birthday Gin Wishlist
As for me, I’m sooo happy to say that World Gin Day coincides with my birthday! I usually get a couple of bottles of gin … last year was Jaffa Cake gin and I have to say I wasn’t a fan. It just didn’t taste natural. In fact I gave it away …shhhh!
This year I decided it was best to get in early and drop a link on the family Whatapp group. So which gin is on my wish list? Well, I’ve been itching to try Worsley Gin. It’s a small batch London Dry Gin, handcrafted in Worsley, just outside Manchester, with a botanical blend of herbs and floral accents.
Available online, they also sell a luxury gift set which is a great way to treat yourself to a quiet moment if the rest of your clan aren’t gin fans (are they mad?!)
Having said that, I really hope I get the full bottle and not the gift set!! In fact, it would look totally fabulous as part of my drinks cabinet staging too and is totally on brand. Dark moody blues and copper metallics is a combination I often use in my furniture designs. Paired with beautiful burr walnut grain stripped back and re-oiled and mirrored glass, it’s a match made in Heaven!