World’s Largest Hotel Gin Collection is in The Azores
- Editor OGN Daily
- 8 hours ago
- 2 min read
You may have expected that such a collection would be in a major city - surprisingly it's actually on an island in the mid-Atlantic. But why and how?
São Miguel is the largest of the nine volcanic islands - located about 870 miles west of Lisbon - that make up the Azores. And on this little mid-Atlantic hideaway Ali Bullock, proprietor of the Solar Branco Eco Estate, has been gradually building his extraordinary collection of gins.
Bullock recently announced the addition of his 2,000th bottle and claims the largest gin collection of any hotel in the world. “We started with my own personal stash of 300 and now we have bottles from 72 countries and every continent except Antarctica,” says Bullock. “We’ll have someone visit from a small town in Tasmania and say ‘You don’t have my local gin’ and I’ll say ‘Here it is.’”
Lots of travelers take home a bottle of local gin from their vacation, but visitors to the Solar Branco Eco Estate has people packing a bottle when they leave for their trip instead. “The rules are if they bring one I already have - I get to keep it,” laughs Bullock. “But if it’s a new one they get to swap it for one of my gins. It’s amazing. We’re getting incredible gins that you will never see anywhere else in the world all in one place.”
The collection is beautifully and enticingly on display at the hotel’s ‘Gin Library,’ a former farmer’s cottage on the property, which was built in the 1800s. All guests are invited for a complimentary gin and tonic every evening, and there are gin flights and gin masterclasses available as well.
So, if you're partial to G&Ts and fancy trying something wildly rare, head off to São Miguel (armed with something rare yourself) and discover the variety of tastes on offer.