Just the tonic

Ever wondered what it would be like to be the lemon in your favourite tipple? No? Fair enough, but on a break from building sculptural desserts, jellymongers Bompas and Parr did. The result of their cocktails and dreams is Alcoholic Architecture – a walk-in gin and tonic with a super-retro 80s soundtrack.

First things first – on with a protective paper boiler suit – it’s pretty moist being inside a G&T and you don’t want to spoil your nice clothes.

Once you look like you’re ready to tackle a bio-hazard, it’s time to head downstairs where the music becomes more muffled representing what it would be like to immerse yourself in a glass of booze, a concept created by sound artist, Douglas Murphy.

Vision is restricted in the living-cocktail. As you hit the entrance to the basement you’re hit by a wall of mist, which to be honest, is a little panic inducing – a bit like being out on the moors, hunting the Hound of the Baskervilles with a hip flash full of mother’s ruin, surrounded by the scientists from ET.

As your eyes adjust you get your bearings and it’s a little disappointing to see light fittings and dado rail, kind of like a student party if someone had spilled gin on the carpet and turned up the blow-heater.

Keen to get the most of the gin, fellow revellers were wandering around with open months trying to gulp down the alcoholic vapours. According to co-creator, Harry Parr, you’d have to spend an hour in the gin-haze to inhale the alcoholic equivalent to a shot of gin. “But,” he notes, “it depends how fast you breathe.”

Unless you’re hyperventilating then, a 40 minute session in the drink shouldn’t have too much effect.
“Are you drunk?” Hannah asks 4Food’s editor, Gina.
“No. Are you?”
“No, but look at my face if I put my hood behind my ears. I look like Pob… perhaps I am a bit.”

If you’re thinking about coming here on a date, be warned – vanity is best left at the door. Every burst of mist is pure gin and tonic and the sticky substance creates sticky film that plasters hair to face leaving you looking like a sweaty raver. But since everyone looks equally ridiculous, no-one seems to mind.

“It’s better than my expectations,” says one gin genie. “Can you imagine if you did it with Bacardi Breezers? It would be horrendous.”

Read Sam Bompass’ thoughts on gin, jelly and the science of sense

Read more about Bompas and Parr, creators of the Alchoholic Architecture

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