Gin and Tonic Festival

Following on from the Food and Gin Pairing, was the Gin and Tonic Festival held at Mason's Press in Woodstock, Cape Town.  My friends and I were excited to go, we had had a blast at the Food and Gin Pairing so thought the G&T Fest would be more of the same.

 

To give Mush Tun their dues, it was their first big festival, so there were some things to be improved on but overall a very enjoyable festival.

Let's start with the fact that the gates opened at 11am but when we got there after 12 we still had to stand in the sun for 30 minutes waiting to get in.  There were 2 people scanning tickets and having to put the wrist bands on as well.  When there's a group of people, take for instance we were 4 girls, then it takes some time. 

We had "early bird" tickets which meant that we had to buy a glass for R30 and then also buy pennies.  There was a lot of confusion surrounding the pennies, did we use them everywhere, could we use cash or credit cards.  You had to buy your glass and pennies in the "Pennies Bank" which caused a lot of congestion.  Once you got into the room you could buy pennies for cash from a girl standing on the side but you still had to wait in line to get a glass.  My suggestion would be to have "Pennies" girls walking around selling pennies for cash, and if you need to buy with your card or SnapScan then you can go into the bank.  There would be a lot less congestion and some happier people.

From the Pennies Bank we roamed around trying to figure out where we could use our pennies or where we had to pay cash.  Another suggestion would be for each vendor to clearly state whether they take pennies or cash or both.

The venue was different to what we've experienced with other festivals, for example with "Taste of Cape Town" it's held at the Green Point Cricket Club so it's a huge open space and everything is set in a circle.  Whereas Mason's Press is a building filled with shops and warehouses.  It made it interesting trying to find what we were looking for and also easy to find quiet spots in the passages to chill for a bit or have a bit to eat.

We quickly found the "Skinny Juice Co" and had the most amazing cocktails.  They were so refreshing on such a warm day.  We each tried a different one, but I enjoyed the Citrus one the best.

 From there we had a look at the different vendors, went into the "Gin Garage" which could definitely have used some fans.  The music was good, the vendors all decorated their stalls differently and it was a bit of a battle deciding what we wanted to try. 

But we all know that drinking on an empty stomach is a no-no, so hunting food was next on the list.  We could smell burgers and kept seeing people eating them but somehow we never found the stall, what a bummer for us :(  We landed up having Asian wraps from the "Lotus Food Truck", they were good but really hot. 

That was another negative against the festival their was hardly any food options.  I know it's all about the Gin but unless you want people to get completely out of control, they need to eat.  The only options we saw were paella, Asian wraps, burgers (which we didn't find until as we were leaving), sweet treats at Centerpieces, gelato and there is a coffee shop.  The oreo cupcakes from Centerpieces were amazing, not too sweet but so yummy :)

There's positives and negatives to every event you attend and there may have been more negatives than normal to this one, but I think that was purely because it was their first one, and teething issues are to be expected.  All I can say is that I'm looking forward to the next one.

And to end off the day, our mountain gave us a show while we were waiting for the train.