Photo: Press
“Every single one of you is perceptually inadequate, but it's not your fault”, says a well-groomed, sharply dressed man with quizzical eyebrows. “Tonight we will give you back your sensory tools."
This summer, 91 George Street, Edinburgh, plays host to Hendrick’s Emporium of Sensorial Submersion. Here, a handcrafted, eccentric, experience awaits all those brave enough to call themselves Gin indulgers. Emulating a ritualistic right of passage, an unimaginable immersive evening takes place.
Take a leap of faith and follow your quirky host to an unfamiliar door. If you wish to enter, you must suit up in the white lab coat being handed to you. Fingers on lips, step into a blindingly white room complete with industrial noise cancelling headphones. Prepare to sip ‘the elixir of quietude’, aka dry Martini, while listening to the sound of your our heartbeat in the Quietest Bar on Earth. “We revel at peaking the parietal lobe”, say our host. Mind blown yet?
On to the Audio-Gastrotorium Laboratory, meet the professor with an obsession for sensory trickery. Become part of a live, personalised experiment in which visual trickery and perception manipulation are the variants - how much can you trust your senses? If there's ever a reason to drink, it's in the name of science.
“Keep your hands to yourself until instructed otherwise”, our cheeky host warns as we make our way to the Quantumphysical Soundscape of Hendrick’s Gin. Using the metal vessel in front of you and fellow gin drinkers around you, build a collective cacophony, an imagining of what the atoms in your cocktail would sound like if you could hear them. Having had your senses whiplashed, lie down and relax. Bathe in the soothing sound of gong and submit yourself to a journey of self-discovery via Gin.
This surreal, mulit-scenery experience is unparalleled when it come to the weird and wonderful. Gin never tasted so good. But there’s is one piece of advise we could all remember; “drink not to forget the moment, but to at last come to your senses.”
Hendrick’s Emporium of Sensorial Submersion runs for the duration of Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Keep your taste buds posed for an experience near you.
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