I visited Amsterdam in the spring of 2010, but I did not visit the Van Gogh Museum during that visit. I was only around for a long weekend, and most of the time was spent on a canal boat ride, a cycle ride, and exploring the city. As I was recently in Amsterdam, I decided that this was my chance to visit the Van Gogh Museum and then see the House of Bols (liquor musuem) across the street.
The Van Gogh Museum took a couple of hours to explore, and it was extremely busy with a long queue, but we managed to skip the queue by purchasing advance tickets outside Rijksmuseum. Inside was also difficult to see the artwork and read about it, so we did not stay for too long. I did learn a little bit about the artists, and a lot of people were using audio guides for an extra fee.
We headed to the House of Bols, which is literally across the street from the Van Gogh Museum, and we were told about the company's history and its invention - Genever. This is the original alcohol for the use of cocktails, and its popularity helped the English create 'gin', which is closely related. Today, the House of Bols is well-known for producing liquors for the cocktail market. I have purchased a few flavours myself, such as the melon and the banana, and I enjoy making cocktails.
Additionally, the House of Bols KLM houses were also on display. I love these. A couple of our friends gave us a couple when they lived in Amsterdam for a short time. They are highly-collectable. The airline KLM gives a house (made of Delft blue) to its business or first class passengers. It contains drink inside it.
The next portion of the tour was a room where we could smell the different flavours of liquor and try to guess what the flavour was. Some of these were easy, but some of them were difficult. We were then supposed to write down which scents we preferred so that we could try a free shot of it in the bar at the end of the tour.
At the end of the tour, we used the screens outside the bar area to determine which cocktail we wanted. The tour included a free cocktail. I actually had a little bit of a difficult time choosing one with the flavours that I wanted to try while the bloke was happy to try a few.
I settled on Swizzle, which contained fruit-based liquors. The bloke opted for Bols Cheesecake, which contains Bols Yoghurt and a Bols flavour of your chosing.
We had our shots first. I had the kiwi and the peach. The bloke had the strawberry, and I cannot remember what the other flavour was.
The screen where we selected the cocktails that we wanted to try also printed out the recipe so that we could make them ourselves. I received a plastic coin to try another cocktail for five euro.
I choose the Bols Summer Fruity Martini. The cocktails were nice, but they were a little too strong for me and I would have preferred more fruit or juice.
Have you been to the House of Bols or the Van Gogh Museum? After our visit, we headed over to see Amsterdam SAIL 2015.
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