From ‘mother’s ruin’ to the hipster’s drink
Small distilleries fuel gin’s growing popularity in U.K. and beyond
LONDON— Ever since European apothecaries began distilling gin and selling it as a cure-all in the 16th century, the juniper-flavored liquor has been revered as a medicine, vilified for fuelling public disorder and consumed in a multitude of every-season cocktails.
Now, it is stirring up a specialized tourist trade in the homeland of London dry gin thanks in part to entrepreneurial bottling and branding.
After surging for a decade, gin sales in Britain reached nearly £2 billion, or about $3.4 billion, in Britain through last fall, compared with £1.26 billion for the same period in 2017, according to the Wine and Spirit Trade Association. Drinkers of pink and flavoured versions have helped make it the country’s second-most-popular spirit, behind vodka.
Gin has gotten so popular in Britain that, after a 13-year absence, the coun- try’s Office for National Statistics added it back to the basket of goods it uses to measure inflation.
Many of the newer products share the flavour of juniper, but others vary widely from traditional dry gin.
The revival has spawned gin-flavoured marmalade and gin-scented candles, prompting fears of overkill among some British producers.
As a result, they are seeking new growth overseas. The birth of a new boom Sam Galsworthy and Fairfax Hall, childhood friends from Britain, were working in the beverage industry in the United States in the early 2000s and watching microbreweries and craft distilleries multiply around them.
They set about starting a gin distillery in West London in 2007, but were quickly stymied by bureaucratic rules stretching back more than 250 years.
In 1751, British officials, worried that too many people were succumbing to so-called mother’s ruin, passed the Gin Act to stamp out small-scale and home production by limiting gin-making to stills with a capacity of at least 1,800 litres.
Galsworthy and Hall lobbied the government to ease the restriction, and in 2009, their company, Sipsmith, was granted a license to produce gin. The move opened the door for other small distilleries.
Gin-making has exploded in Britain since then. The number of distilleries grew to 419 in 2018 from 113 in 2009, according to the Office for National Statistics. The benefit of a good back story Ian Puddick was renovating the London building that housed his plumbing business in 2013 when he discovered that it was once home to a bakery where illicit gin was made.
He tracked down the owners’ descendants and although they didn’t give him a recipe, they identified several ingredients. With that and some guesswork, he came up with Old Bakery Gin, which is now sold at Harrods and Fortnum & Mason.
Puddick’s tale is one of many origin stories whetting the appetite of the new generation of connoisseurs. Oscar Dodd, a Fortnum & Mason buyer, said shoppers want to learn about the provenance or ingredients of their gins. “There’s a social currency with gin. You want to introduce your friends.” ‘Both grown-up and hipster’ Galsworthy of Sipsmith expects the gin boom to stall at some point. “Make no bones about it,” he said, “the proliferation of it endangers the category in of itself.”
He and other distillers are looking beyond Britain for new customers.
Smaller entrants from other parts of the world are also getting into the market.
Dragon’s Blood Gin has just started making gin in a custombuilt distillery in Inner Mongolia, China. And new distilleries are popping up from Australia to Liechtenstein to the United States, said Nicholas Cook, director of the Gin Guild in Britain. Gin’s appeal, he said, is that “it’s both grown-up and hipster at the same time.”