Filipinos consume 43 percent of world's gin.

That may just be the right swig to make any gin snob feel right at home — in the mellow, booze-blind company of men you see huddling 'round-the clock in the country's many street corners, drinking away their jobs and their credit.

Somewhere, someone nursed a drink — and a bright idea around the potential of the world's gin capital: gin tourism.

It's a movement he started in his classier juice joint, tucked away like a blind pig behind some alchemist's laboratory in a barren industrial spot in Calamba, Laguna — an unlikely place to go for a drink to a crowd acquainted with the livelier Malate and Poblacion.

Here, you don't sit at the bar and revel at a backdrop of bottles and empty wooden casks; you walk through, gin in hand, a walk-in closet replete with the heat, smell and buzz of an authentic craft distillery.

Full Circle Craft Distillers Co. has opened for private tours, cocktail classes and events for an intimate look into its time-honored traditions of authentic craft distillery.

The tour is an interactive look into the art of great gin, Archipelago Botanical Gin, for instance, handcrafted from 28 botanicals mostly foraged across these islands.

The flagship botanical is a medley of pomelo, oranges and calamansi, Benguet pine, fresh mango, sampaguita, ylang-ylang and kamia tossed into a copper pot to undertake a slow, carefully controlled distillation.

Copper fully captures the flavors and aromas of the rich botanical recipe for the best possible taste profile.

The still's copper interior helps remove sulfur and all things amiss from the spirit, thus the gin's distinctive taste.

After distillation, the spirits are slowly hydrated to a bottling strength using the pure spring water from underground aquifers fed by the watershed of Mt. Makiling Nature Reserve.

All these processes are poured into your glass as you marinate at the bar, partaking not only in conversations, but in the place's rich traditions.