Big Adventures with Paula McGuire


I’M out of control. Seriously, while you’re inside it warming yourself by the well-guarded flicker of its safety fire, I’m peering in at the window, wishing I hadn’t shunned its organised hospitality.

For long enough, control and I were the best of friends. I wasn’t exactly a freak, but I reckon I could have joined the circus on a technicality. With control on my side, anxiety was, at first, manageable. Everything within reason was carefully planned and executed.

Now, I don’t buy into stereotypes; their stock just doesn’t hold its value But I believe my next admission might just cost me my passport.

I don’t drink alcohol. Wait, I promise I’m not banging the drum for temperance. My rhythm doesn’t quite stretch to bitter disapproval. I just missed that particular party boat in my teenage years, and the tide of juvenile rebellion waits for no-one. You can see, I’m sure, the connection; if not, hang fire, the magnification is about to be cranked.

Throughout my formative years, I watched as the cool kids found freedom in losing control to either pocket-money cider or the giddying effects of herd mentality. On the periphery of the social scene already, there was no way I was risking even that suburban perch by embarrassing myself in potentia when the bottle was handed around. Control and I had a good thing going and I wasn’t loosening my grip just for some liquid liberty. So I stayed dry – and so did my powder.

Only recently, as my anxiety has waned and the only thing waxing were my ear canals, have I finally been able to burst out of the cage and see the gilding for what it really was: rust. While I loved control with an abandon of which it would surely disapprove, its hold on me was more parasite than paramour, and gradually I found its hand no longer a gentle guide but a harrying fist instead.

These days, I take pleasure in flaunting its rules: leaving life to chance and wind speed. But somehow, so far from my adolescence, it just didn’t seem right to start standing outside corner shops asking strangers to source me something with a volume lower than miming mice – for one thing, most of them were by now 10 years my junior. And never having been a frequenter of the local hostelries, alcohol just didn’t really find its way into my consciousness, even as my inhibitions died out.

Then someone invited me into the fold. Only the invitation was a challenge. And the fold was a gin festival. With the bulk of all British output now hailing from Scottish distilleries, gin is our country’s answer to the question of what’s the quickest way to make a decent drink. And answer it we do. No longer is gin merely the solace of stressed housewives with little respect for weights and measures. The fresh wave of production has expanded the drink’s audience exponentially, and its new exponents are avid, demonstrated by the popularity in recent years of events dedicated to its revival.

The Juniper Festival celebrated its fourth iteration in Scotland last weekend with a one-day sojourn to Glasgow. After three years of gin-soaking the capital, Juniper crossed the Central Belt – by public transport, of course – to showcase its wares to a city that, let’s face it, loves nothing more than an excuse to tank up in the name of progress. But this festival is more than just little cups of conferred class, since its visitors aren’t just invited to swallow, but also to crow. Masterclasses from the likes of Caorunn and Minus 33 allowed enthusiasts a peek behind the label of their favourite tipple, into the murky waters of the clear spirit itself. Never one to pass up an opportunity to learn – or to hole up in a darkened room with a bunch of strangers – I booked myself into the first talk of the day, from

Broxburn-based distillers Daffy’s.

Not being a great patron of warehouses – hold the dyslexic hooker jokes, please – I’d never before visited the festival’s venue, SWG3 in the West End. The former customs and excise building by the Clyde has surely seen its share of booze hauls, but in its latest upgrade to an arts and cultural space, its trade is now more smug than smuggler. I joined a bevy of bon vivants in the atmospheric Poetry Club to learn about the whys and wherefores of gin distilling, and, of course, to sample the sauce.

As brand ambassador Lindsay Blair charted the course of Daffy’s two years on the market,

I allowed my senses to adjust to the environment. Trains rattled overhead while miniature versions poked from the exposed brickwork above; spotlights to make the best beatnik blush. While cocktails were handed around the grateful group, we heard about gin’s short distillation process, measured in days rather than decades, and the specific ingredients, such as Lebanese mint, that make this gin unique.

True to form, I refused the booze, keeping my cherry instead for the hard stuff: neat gin or nothing was going to pop it. Merriment rose around the second round, but I skipped out into the main market hall to finally pick my undoing – or at least its fuel.

The mood in the room was ebullient, as drinkers ticked off their sampled shots from the festival checklist, and I’ll admit I envied a little the shared chatter of favour and flaw. From coconut to coriander seeds, the botanicals are apparently what makes one gin distinct from another, and it wasn’t easy for a novice out of her nunnery to choose between brands.

Among a range of gins hailing from Stirling to Shetland and all the backyard breweries in between, I was delighted to see my own people among the stallholders: the soft drink soldiers like Fentimans and the revived Bon Accord, calling out to my tastebuds, although for most they were the means rather than the end.

Eventually armed with a glut of tiny tumblers that made me feel like a tank at a tea party, I set up shop on the upturned crates in the hall’s centre and took to the drink.

I won’t lie – guilt gives me hives – but that first mouthful of gin went down like hot glass. With my face making shapes that geometry can’t define, I gulped back that short measure and waited for my stomach’s return to sender.

Although I’m sure I weigh in around the Floyd Mayweather category, I managed to hold more spirit in my system than Hallowe’en in The Overlook, but the effects on my processing powers were telling – and what they were telling is that

I can’t handle my liquor.

Suddenly, my brain was no longer firing freely. I reckon I could have walked in a straight line had the notion taken me, but by the end of the afternoon I didn’t have the head for notions. All I really wanted was food and a futon and, in spite of the activity all around me, the part of my intellect that dealt with anything above Maslow’s square base had long since called it a night – and it was time for the rest of me to take its lead.

The Juniper Festival reminded me that, for better or worse, my relationship with control has ended. And maybe I just didn’t mix the right martini, but I’m pretty sure gin won’t be the ruin of this mother.