Wijnand Fockink

This is not the typical brewery and does not have the typical beer that one expects out of a brewery. Manuel (www.travbuddy.com/manuel_s) took Agnes and I on a night out after the big new years do was over and we began with Wijnand Fockink a very small room in the surrounding area of the Dam in Amsterdam. It was crowded only because the room was small, there were barely 15 people and we were rubbing shoulders. This brewery has been preserved in it's original state since the 1600s I was told: Manuel was the historian for the night and seemed to thrive in his knowledge of his home town. He said we would not find jenever like we find here, anywhere else in Amsterdam. Wijnand Fockink is actually a distilery in hte early years it was a tarven. Manuel ordered the special drink(jenever) which turned out to be a special gin brewed right her since 1670s when the distilery was opened, the jenever gin is stronger than John Walker's Black label whiskey only with a similar taste and smoother feel. Agnes afraid to try something new went with a familiar glass of red South Afrfican wine while Manuel and I took the jenever and I downed mine as if it was a shot of patron tequila(bad idea!, please do not do what I did). Well I was not warned or told how to drink it until my first glass was down in my tummy and the heat rising in my body, lol! Manuel and Agnes reported I was happier and more conversational after my first glass.
Manuel ordered the jenever with a glass of special beer called De Ryck, you have to try this, he said he was in the habit of drinking jenever with De Ryck, so I did the same thing he did. At this point Manuel told me there was a special way to drink the jenever; I had to bend down at the table and drink the top of the jenever from the glass that had been filled to spilling point. Incredible experience I had and the feeling was great, the happy mode instantly began and I felt like I was on some 'high agent; ha-ha!

A must go to when you visit Amsterdam.