Dartmoor Gin

The gin distillery sits just outside Newton Abbot, and honestly, it's worth the diversion if you've got an afternoon to kill. You get taken through how they actually make the stuff - from botanicals to still to bottle - and there's proper gin to taste at the end. The tour moves at a decent pace, though they do bang on about provenance for longer than strictly necessary.

It's the sort of place that works brilliantly if you're staying at Oakmoor Touring Park nearby and fancy something that doesn't involve hiking boots. Families with older teenagers will get something out of it; small kids will lose interest after about twenty minutes. The tasting room is comfy enough, and if gin's your thing, you'll walk away with bottles you can't get in the supermarket.

The whole visit takes about two hours if you do the full tour and have a go at the tastings. Book ahead - they don't always run on quiet days. Prices aren't cheap, but you're not going for value; you're going because you want to understand why Dartmoor gin tastes like Dartmoor. And it does. The botanicals they forage locally actually matter.

It fits neatly into a park holiday if you want one proper outing that isn't a walk. Drive in from Oakmoor, spend two hours learning something, grab a bottle or three, then head back for dinner. Not revolutionary, but thoroughly decent.