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Hasseltse Jeneverfeesten

Hasselt Travel Blog › entry 4 of 16 › view all entries

The glorious days of summer in Europe are over, now we will survive and enjoy winter in the Low Countries

Hasselt, Belgium Travel Photos

The festival of Gin
Hasselt is one of the historic and modern centres of Jenever. Although often called "a type of Gin", more correctly gin is one form of Jenever, taken by Flemish immigrants to England. In the homeland, hundreds of different spirits are made from the juniper berry, ranging from white spirits to fruit-flavoured sweet spirits to creamy chocolate spirits.

The Hasseltse Jeneverfeesten is a weekend-long celebration of all things Jenever held in the city of Hasselt on the third weekend of October every year. There are small events on all day scattered across the old town, ranging from waiter races (while carrying trays of Jenever), athletic cocktail making competitions and street theatre.

The drinking and atmosphere really take off in the mid afternoon, with everyone in the city out and about to sample different flavour jenevers.
The best way to transport Jeneve
Adrian_Liston says:
I'm the same, I quite like the fruity jenevers, but I avoid the wheat and cream-based ones. My favourite would be the passionfruit or citrus ones, which are sweet enough to drink straight, and I quite like the cherry ones as mixed drinks :)
Posted on: Oct 21, 2009
lamadude says:
I remember going there a couple of years ago with a few friends from Limburg. They even had a fountain that distributed jenever instead of water for a day.

On a related note: do you like drinking jenever? I'm not a big fan of the very strong traditional "graanjenever" (wheat jenever, often 50 or 60% alcohol) but I do like some of the fruit flavored jenevers, such as apple or passion fruit :-)

The 7 oaks in Leuven, which you wrote about previously, is known for its jenever selection and jenever parties. But even better is 't dreupelkot in Ghent, with over 250 kinds of jenever, including home-made flavours. Check it out if you ever go to Ghent again :)
Posted on: Oct 19, 2009
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