National Jenever Museum at Schiedam, The Netherlands

My Dutch colleague suggested me to visit Schiedam, a small city located 60km away from the Amsterdam. Lady luck was clearly with me as my visit coincides with the Annual City Open day which means all the museums in the town can be visited free of charge.

What attracted me most in this 'Gin Capital of the World' is the National Jenever Museum Schiedam. The century old building was once housed the Dutch malt wine distillery and distillery factory. The malt wine is distilled according to the Old Dutch method and recipes back traced in 1700.

The wooden barrels and tool used such as clay stove to distill the wine are well maintained. Visitors can climb up to the wooded stairs to have a closer look. No doubt the whole building is filled with the aroma from the aging wine and gin.

Upstairs, you may find a great collection of mini bottled wine and gin which comes in different shapes and unit label designs. There is also a section of different spices. Stored in the small drawers, you can pull out the drawer, take a smell and even a close look of them. Put the Master Chef's hat on and see how many spices you can recognized.

The court yard is sometimes used for specially functions. For the open day Saturday, there was specially sit down dinning held in Jenever museum, where chefs and crews used the courtyard as the open kitchen.

Men dressed up in old fashion clothing complete with a hat and looked through the window from the century old building fascinated me most. It was quite a scene to be captured!