Marylebone Gin, 70 cl

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For Johnny, who spent his school holidays traipsing the streets where these acres of lush parkland and bandstands once stood, they’re an evocative reminder of London at its finest. Part high-society, part sleaze, every inch an emblem of the Big Smoke.

Any given night in Georgian London, a fête was afoot. And to find it, all you needed to do was make your way to the nearest pleasure garden.I get geeky about everything. But it does means I can also be a bit of a fan girl. I take inspiration from all sorts of areas, not just gin related. Getting a DM from a favourite brewer to ask my opinion is always going to make me have a moment. And when the first Master Distiller added me as a friend on Facebook…

With the Berkshire brand, I had a desire to create a local brand that would make gin, but that could evolve to make spirits like vodka and rum. I live in West Berkshire now near the Yattendon Estate, a 9,000-acre estate that’s actually one of the largest Christmas tree growers in the U.K, which was great because I was keen to work with new and local flavours. So for the first batch we did, I was allowed to go out on the estate and chop down some Christmas trees and we used Norway Spruce in the recipe! It’s a dry gin but you’ll get a little bit of extra pine in there on the finish and I think it’s a nice balanced gin. We make it right now in a pot still called Harry, who resides in the wonderful The Royal Oak Pub & Hotel right in the heart of Yattendon. But I’ve got a lease on a bigger premises on the Yattendon Estate at the moment and we’re planning to put a bigger pot still in place so we can really start developing the brand and the range. I’m always trying to work on a couple of new flavours and once we have the larger pot still we can play with some rum and do some ageing and stuff like that. The JJ Whitley range is more about my great grandfather, who was the son of a vicar, so he used to spend a lot of time in vicarage gardens around Cheshire and Lancashire, so we were looking for hedgerow and garden flavours.In this Georgian era, gin was very much the drink of choice for Londoners – albeit, the spirit was a bit rougher than what we drink today,” he says. “So making a gin really seemed like the natural thing for me to do.” Despite being relatively new, The Nest can already lay claim to being one of London’s best rooftop bars. In the end, Johnny settled on Pleasure Garden Distilling Company as a name for his venture, and 13 elegant botanicals to go into his flagship gin. These combine to form the refined liquid in the beautiful blue bottle that you unwrapped in this month’s Gin of the Month box. And what a liquid it is. But while his family’s long history of distilling and a swish central London location – not to mention a daily audience for his distilling efforts – would put an unbearable amount of pressure on some, Johnny Neill is more than ready for the challenge. In fact, he’s thrilled to be on this amazing adventure.

This cookie is used to a profile based on user's interest and display personalized ads to the users.While the majority of the gardens were well-lit with glittering lamps and laughter – novelist Tobias Smith wrote that the illuminations and magic lanterns “almost made me feel I was in some enchanted castle or fairy palace” – so-called ‘dark walks’, where paths snaked off into shadow, were prime hunting ground for predators of all kinds.

Yet Johnny didn’t start out as a distiller. He worked in finance, before leaving that all behind and crafting the original Whitley Neill London Dry Gin, the Whitley Neill range of spirits, and then launching the JJ Whitley range – in reference to his great grandfather.

The Best Bars in Marylebone

He says, “We’ve tried to develop something balanced and delicate, where the botanicals work in harmony, but also a spirit with a certain robustness.” JN: Right now there’s no ambition to create any new brands. If we did do a rum it would be under one of the existing brands. I’d love to do a spiced rum in the Berkshire range. We’ve got stills that are capable of distilling some quality rum so we’ll do some experiments and see what we get. I have stuff ageing on the estate down in Berkshire and in the Marylebone range I’ve got some rum casks from the Foursquare Distillery which are absolutely spectacular, so whether we play with rum casks or we develop a rum, we’ll have to see. For now, I need to focus and make sure that everything’s working smoothly in this difficult period. Looking for the best bars in Marylebone? Marylebone might fly under the radar as one of London’s drinking spots, but it boasts a wealth of cool bars if you know where to look.