Forget everything that you thought you knew about Gin and Tonic. Forget the ice too. Store your bowl-shaped glass, with a chunky base, in your freezer. Then there’s no need for ice that melts and dilutes the gin.

As for the tonic that’s merely an accidental legacy from the days of the Raj. Brits in India took their bitter anti-malarial quinine in tonic water, adding gin to provide some taste.

A day at Nelson’s Gin School, near Uttoxeter, is a gin education. Neal Harrison gave up his career as a chef to focus on producing an original gin with balance, flavour and subtlety. The bargain gin in your supermarket trolley, later to have its turpentine-like burn drowned by lashings of tonic, contains juniper and just four or five botanicals. Nelson’s London Dry Gin blends 27 Botanicals.

Nelson’s? For two centuries no British naval ship left port without a barrel of gin. If you thought sailors drank rum you are right. Gin was for the upper-class officers. Nelson even founded a distillery on Menorca. And to complete the story, Harrison’s grandfather was called Nelson.

“Bring your own botanicals,” the Nelson’s website encourages. During your 10 o’clock to 3 o’clock day at Nelson’s you will design, distill and taste your own gin. There’s quite a lot of tasting too. It always begins with rolling neat gin around your mouth. These are connoisseur sophisticated distillations, not primitive firewaters. Departing by taxi is strongly encouraged.

“One visitor flew in from Thailand, with his own botanicals, to create a light spicy gin. Perfect for Thai food,” reminisced Dave. He was our joyful guide through the world of gin. Travelling from South East Asia may seem a long way to go, to create just one bottle of gin to take away. However, Nelson’s record your recipe and will recreate it for you whenever you put in an order.

Sixty botanicals are on hand for creative wizardry. But iris root, dried for three years, to stop ingredient oils separating is a given, as is angelica root which smooths the transition between flavours. Coriander seeds complete gin’s Holy Trinity. Legally, it ain’t gin without juniper berries but they are added last.

When designing a gin you are looking for levels: an initial aromatic, fragrant or zesty taste maybe elderflower or kafir or hibiscus – or a hundred and one other flavours.

“Think of flavours as height,” advises Dave, before adding philosophically, “It’s an emotional journey not a science.”

By now I was confused by nasal overload having sniffed flavours from bladderwrack (seaweedy) through liquorice (Woolworths-pick-and-mixy) to Rosemary and Thyme, the traditional heart of a 17th Century Olde English gin.

Stood in the middle of his Chemistry style lab, there are 24 stations, Dave had something of a Chemistry teacher moment.

“Do not put a whole star of anise in your still, you’ll end up with Pernod. Just use a single blade.”

Many of the designers, and some stills had couples testing their relationship over controversial flavour combinations, looked at fruits to provide the mid-range flavours: such as blackberry, black currant, cranberries, pink grapefruit, lemon and rosehips.

Finally, there should be a hint of heat for the lingering after-taste, that warm after-glow. Chilli at the fiery end of the spectrum or gentler pink peppercorns.

Then there was another Chemistry teacher moment when I took my recipe for a warming Christmas Gin to Dave for approval. I hoped that almond flavoured tonka beans, evocative of Christmas Cake marzipan, bitter orange and cassia quills, bringing a mince pie aroma plus a touch of cinnamon would recall mince pies.

“Should work,” Dave, the Del Monte Man of Gin, gave his approval. “Personally I would add some coconut to bind the flavours together.” So I did.

My still began to drip gin, just over 82% proof, as we lunched at our labs. Dave ran through a social history of gin. Once the duty on gin, which was far safer to drink than water, mothers gave it to kids, was lower than ale. Brewers paid Hogarth to draw cartoons of “Mother’s Ruin” in squalid city slums. His 18th Century “Fake News” persuaded the government to raise the Gin Duty and only give licenses to those producing 400 gallons annually … until Sipsmith’s challenge recently overturned that ruling.

Today there may be over 300 small craft distilleries in the U.K. Nobody knows. “Perhaps two start up every week whilst another one closes,” says Dave wistfully. Meanwhile, he has added filtered water to my Christmas Gin, he announces that is a perfectly legitimate 42.3% proof. Smooth enough to sip without tonic.

School is out and we haven’t even had time to cover Gin in Cocktails. Whilst I’m thinking of Dave Brubeck’s sax player’s saying that he wanted a sound as clean as a Dry Martini, the true scholars are booking another class.

One scholar wants to return to create a light meadowsweet summer gin, with heady depth from honeysuckle and a touch of coconut to build the viscosity. You wouldn’t want a gin that’s too “thin”. To paraphrase Nelson’s a great gin should be like notes in a concerto. Colours in a landscape. Soft scents carried on a summer breeze.

Gin-distilling’s become an art.

Nelson’s Distillery & School

Unit 5A

Grindley Business Village

Uttoxeter

Staffordshire

ST18 0LR