Gaia cocktails – masterclasses at the studio

Gaia Cocktails are the next venture from daughter and mother duo Alex and Laura, owners of Gaia Studio.   They’ve been a part of Folkestone Harbour Marketplace since the summer of 2022.  Then, in 2024, they opened their bricks and mortar business in Platform 4 at Folkestone Harbour and the space has grown to focus on coffee, cocktails and a good time.  Their bar shares space with their retail offering, but cocktails are taking centre stage come the evenings.  Folkelife spoke to Alex about their latest venture.

“This is the place to come for the Bees’ Knees of cocktails.  We’ve got some pre- and post- prohibition and some modern classics on our menu, and we’re creating some of our own ones too.  One example is The Chemist’s Colada, which is our take on a Piña Colada.  It’s a clarified, so completely clear, Piña Colada, served in miniature, sleek, Martini glasses, and it takes 36 hours to make from start to finish.”

gaia-made ingredients

“Our ethos is to have a part in making everything we serve.  So all of our sugar syrups, cordials and garnishes are made in-house, and we’ve been working with Pleasant Land distillery, a local brewery, to bring in the top-shelf spirits.  We’re creating ‘affordable luxury’.  So every spirit we use is made with top-shelf spirits and you can taste it in the drink.   It’s also important that our cocktails remain affordable too, so we’re not adding silly prices to what we’re doing.   We’re bringing swanky cocktails that you’d find in a London bar to the seaside, and using local, if not Gaia-made ingredients.”

adaptable cocktails

“We have over 100 cocktails on our menu.  Our standard selection is on the wall, and everything is vegan friendly.  We can also make it alcohol-free too using nice non-alcoholic ‘spirits’.  It’s a bugbear of mine and Zoe’s as we don’t really drink that much, that when we go out, we want to feel like we’re having a nice drink, even if it’s not alcoholic.  I don’t want to be asking for something daft, making me sound like a five year old.  I want a decent drink. 

“All our staff know how to make the standard cocktails, and then there’s a bible behind the bar for instructions on anything else.  That means that everyone is serving to the same standard then.”

appreciating the finer things

“Zoe and I love making cocktails.  We love thinking about the glassware, and how to present what we’re offering.  There’s a real appreciation for the ingredients and what goes in to making these drinks.  And we wanted to make drinks that highlight the effort that the distillers have gone to in making what’s in all these bottles. 

“The Chemist Colada gets served in a science beaker on a gold plate with your frozen mini Martini glass, and you pour it in yourself.  We’re planning a Chemistry Club with Bunsen burners so you can make hot toddies with us.  We’d do all the prep work, but then you would construct the drink at the bar with us.”

workshops with pleasant land distillery

“Jess, from Pleasant Land Distillery, runs our workshops with us.  She brings along their vodka and gin, and then a third thing that they’ve made and might not be on the market yet.  We’ll do a tasting of the vodka, then I’ll take you through how to make a vodka based cocktail.  We do the same with the gin.  Then, the third spirit is something for us to play with. 

“It’s a really fun night, and I think people come because they’re inquisitive.  Plus you can be a hero at home when you come to make the cocktails!

“At the moment we can sit 6 people here, and you can book onto our Cocktail Experiences throughout the year.”

To book onto the next Cocktail Experience click here.