A working distillery with its own bar, making its own gin and rum – and a cheeky name from the phrase for being in trouble
Doghouse Distillery Bar holds a 4.8 from twenty people – a strong score, though on a small sample – and it offers something genuinely special: it is a working distillery with its own bar, making its own spirits on the premises, under a cheeky name drawn from the phrase for being in trouble.
The distillery bar
The great and appealing thing about Doghouse is that it is a real, working distillery – a place where spirits are actually made – with a bar attached, so that you can drink the very gin and rum that is distilled on site, in the presence of the stills that make it. This is the drink at its most direct and authentic: not shipped in from elsewhere, but produced right there, in the same building, by the people serving it.
This is part of a genuine and welcome modern movement – the craft distillery revival. For most of the twentieth century, spirit production was concentrated in a handful of huge industrial distilleries, and the idea of a small, independent, local distillery had all but vanished. In recent years, that has changed dramatically: craft distilleries have sprung up across Britain, making small-batch gin, rum, vodka and whisky with care, character and local identity. Doghouse is part of this revival – a working craft distillery, making its own spirits and letting visitors drink them at the source.
The making of spirits
There is real romance and skill in distilling. To make a spirit, you first produce an alcoholic liquid through fermentation, then distil it – heating it so the alcohol vaporises and rises, then condensing the vapour back to liquid, concentrating and purifying the spirit. This is the “spirit” we explored at High Spirit in the Kensington survey – the rising, ethereal essence captured from the still. For gin, the spirit is then flavoured with botanicals – juniper above all, plus a secret mix of herbs, spices, roots and peels. For rum, it is distilled from sugarcane or molasses. Each craft distillery develops its own recipes, its own character, its own house style.
To drink a spirit in the distillery that made it, beside the copper stills that produced it, is to experience the drink at its most immediate and authentic – a world away from the anonymous branded bottle. Doghouse offers exactly this: its own gin, its own rum, made on site, drunk at the source, with the whole process visible and present.
The doghouse
The name is a cheeky delight. “The doghouse” is, of course, the phrase for being in trouble – “in the doghouse” means being in disgrace, out of favour, banished (metaphorically) to the dog’s kennel to think about what you have done, typically after annoying one’s partner. It is a wry, self-deprecating, faintly disreputable name for a bar – a place, perhaps, for those in the doghouse to console themselves, or a cheeky acknowledgment that drinking here might land you in the doghouse. It has a rakish, unpretentious humour that suits a craft distillery’s slightly rebellious, independent spirit.
There is also, of course, the literal dog connection – and the modern craft distillery, like the modern craft brewery, tends to a dog-friendly, laid-back, unstuffy character that the “doghouse” name captures nicely. Cheeky, rakish and warm, the name promises a place that does not take itself too seriously, even as it takes its spirits very seriously indeed.
The bar
A well-regarded working distillery bar doing a strong 4.8 across a small sample, making its own gin and rum on the premises and letting visitors drink them at the source, under a cheeky name drawn from the phrase for being in trouble.
Verdict
Strongly rated on a small sample, and genuinely special – a working craft distillery with its own bar, serving spirits made on site, under a rakish and self-deprecating name.
Drink the gin where it is made, beside the stills that made it, and enjoy the authenticity of the distillery bar – and the cheeky humour of a place happy to call itself the doghouse.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
My mate’s councillor. Not showing him this. Enough stress.