Price: £15

There was fourteen people on the tour I did today at 1300. I booked the tour online at fairly short notice; when I arrived as I was asked if I was a driver and then told I'd be provided samples in little pots to take away at the end as they do not encourage drink driving. They also asked me if I wanted lemonade, giner ale or water during the tasting which is quite a nice touch.

There tour starts with a video, just short of 6 minutes, which introduces the distillery and the founder, including why the distillery was founded. It's a decent promotional video which gives information without being patronising. The video is shown in a room with benches to sit on; having a bad back I can;t sit on a bench with my back unsupported. Fortunately, there was one chair at the back of the room so I sat here.

Once the video was finished we were led outside and then down to the building housing the distillery. This is where the tour was somewhat odd; we stood just inside the door looking up at the equipment while the guide explained the process of making gin and then the process of making whiskey.

After the explanations were over, we climbed the stairs to look at all of the equipment. For someone like me, who has visited many distilleries (125 as of today), this isn;t too bad as I understand the processes being talked about when the guide is discussing milling, mashing, fermentation and so on, but for people who are new to visiting distilleries, I can easily see this as being confusing.

Many people have trouble following directions as they forget the start of the directions after a few turns; imagine a manufacturing process being described before you see the equipment used in the manufacturing. Now remember that the making of gin and then whisky was discussed, so you need to remember two sets of instructions before you see anything.

The booking details do say that your visit onto the production area will be very short to see the processes described. The tour did include the relevant information, but having visited many distilleries where you are seeing the equipment as it is described, so you can both see and smell each bit, this tour left me disappointed.

I think it is structured this was as the production area is very small and a tour of 14 people is too big to fit while everyone is near the item being described. To my mind though, that means the tour has too many people.

After seeing the production area, we visited the on-site warehouse (there are others elsewhere including one near Manchester) to see the barrels maturing. The types of barrels were discussed and we got to try a little of the new make spirit (as I was driving, I only tasted a very small quantity). This was the part of the tour which was hardest to hear due to the amount of side conversations going on; the guide ploughed through, but I think I was one of only two people actually trying to listen.

We then returned to the visitor centre for the tasting. As I was driving, I got a bottle of lemonade to drink while the tasting was happening with the samples provided in very femmer plastic pots for me to carry them away. To be honest, I prefer a tasting where they give you the samples in a glass so you can nose and taste a little during the tasting instead of just listening to what they are saying before decanting them into the sample pots yourself.

The two samples provided were:

1. Cotswolds Single Malt Whisky with Gift Box - Multi Award Winning Whisky Made with Locally Grown Floor-Malted Barley - 46% ABV
2. Cotswolds Dry Gin - Award Winning Gin Made with Cotswolds Lavender and Refreshing Citrus, with Gift Box - 46% ABV

You are also able to request a couple of additional small samples of other spirits, so I asked to try the Old Tom gin and a ginger gin.

During the tasting, you're sat in confortable chairs in the tasting room a fair distance from the ar where the guide is stood; as with the warehouse, side conversations makes the tasting description a little hard to hear.

The description of the process as good, but if you do this tour, I'd recommend knowing the process of making whisky before you visit to ensure you can remember the described process when looking at the equipment.