If you find yourself on a road trip along the Garden Route in South Africa, I highly recommend making the time to stop at Inverroche. Just a ten-minute drive north from Still Bay, you’ll come across the Inverroche Gin Distillery atop a hill surrounded by farms. It’s also just 90 minutes from George and definitely warrants a trip if you are traveling the Garden Route.
Inverroche infuses their gin with different types of fynbos (pronounced fayn-boss), which grow abundantly in the Cape Floral Region. Fynbos translates to “fine bush” and encompasses the many variants of plants with fine leaves that thrive in the Cape region.
The Cape region has a unique biome that supports a massive diversity of plants – apparently there are more species of plant on Table Mountain than in all of Great Britain. Inverroche selects the varieties of fynbos they want to use in their gin and then propagates them in-house before returning the plants to their natural environment (they note that they do register each planting with Cape Nature). They do this to ensure they responsibly secure the supply they need without sapping the environment.
Book a tour and tasting ahead of time
We called the morning of on a Wednesday to see when they had tours that day. We were planning our Garden Route road trip day by day so we weren’t quite sure ourselves when we’d actually arrive. It seems like it’s definitely best practice to call instead of booking through their website, as we found out the tour was actually at 1pm and not at any of the times listed online. We arrived 45 minutes early – the weather was overcast and drizzly in Still Bay so the beach there wasn’t too appealing. As we entered the reception area, we were warmly greeted by the staff and told our tour would start on time, but we were welcomed to order a gin and tonic and sit in the lounge while we waited.
Because we did the tour just after vacation season (we went late January), we were one of only three groups of people in the place. One of the other groups who had been to the distillery in December attested to the fact that you absolutely must call ahead as the place is normally packed.
Touring the Inverroche Gin Distillery
Our tour guide, Lynton, was fantastic. He knows a ton about the distilling process and seems to treat giving tours as more of a performance than a talk. His jovial tone, laughter, and presentation were on point. We learned the distillery complex actually used to be a home, but was converted in 2018. Inverroche initially opened its doors in 2011 and in that year only produced 250 bottles. Of those 250 bottles, they only managed to sell 10 – not a promising start for the 50-something year old Lorna who left another career to embark on this gin-making journey. Clearly they’ve come a long way since 2011.
The tour begins with a description of the history of Inverroche and a walk through the sensorium, which is a beautiful display of the main scents used in the gin varieties. From there, Lynton showed us to the large room where Inverroche holds distilling classes – yes, you can make your own gin. At the back of this room the massive floor to ceiling pot still that is responsible for making 100% of Inverroche gin stands lording over the mini pot stills used for the gin-making classes. Apparently they’ve named the massive still Magnanimous Mick.
The final room of the tour is a swanky lounge with deep green velvety chairs where each guest sits in front of a wooden board carefully arranged with doubles of four Inverroche gin varieties: classic, verdant, amber, and coco l’orange. Also on each board are a carafe of tonic water, a dish of citrus, and bowls of nuts and chips.
Gin tasting at Inverroche Gin Distillery
Lynton coached us through the process of first tasting the juniper berries in the bowl at the center of our table. This little flavorful berry is what defines gin – without it, you basically just have flavored vodka. It tastes minty, piney, bitter, woody, earthy, citrusy, and sweet. Next we learn that tasting the gin occurs in 3 rounds – first we sip it neat, second we taste it with citrus and finally we may choose to pour tonic in it.
My favorite of Inverroche’s gins is the amber so I distinctly remember how Lynton described it, “he makes you feel warm from the inside – more like a whiskey and a cognac.” He is right. After coaching us through the gins and explaining how each can be crafted into a delicious cocktail, he left our two groups to take our time in the lounge and enjoy the remainder of our gin. We sat with the group of three 20-somethings who were sorting out life and deciding if they wanted to move to New York. One of the guys had just received a call from his medical team letting him know he was officially in remission from Leukemia – so they had something big to celebrate.
The cost for a tour and tasting at Inverroche
It is only 100 rand for both the tour and tasting, that’s about $7. For an additional 10 rand per shot, you can go to the “activation bar” and order shots of any of Inverroche’s 3 liqueurs, their 5 band gins, or their rum. I didn’t love the rum, but the cafe coco liqueur was fantastic. Oh, and on your way out of the distillery, don’t forget to pick up a scoop of gin-infused gelato. Cheers!
The tour and tasting at Inverroche was just one fun stop along a bigger road trip across South Africa. You can see and read about more about what else there is to do and see on the Garden Route here.