Celebrating innovation and passion in our world-class industry
It is our great pleasure to welcome you to the Gin Magazine Awards 2021, which encompass the Icons of Gin awards, World Gin Awards and the Gin Magazine Hall of Fame.
In the year since we last presented the
Gin Magazine Awards, the world has been through 12 of the rockiest months in recent history. A spreading virus outbreak which was in its relative infancy last February became a full-blown global pandemic and caused the world – and life as we know it – to change drastically in almost all corners of the globe.
Bars, hotels and other hospitality and tourist venues were forced to shut their doors; non-essential businesses were ordered to cease operations; and millions, if not billions, of people were given the order to stay at home to avoid exacerbating the spread of a coronavirus which was claiming thousands of lives a day.
It has been a dark time for many industries, and the gin industry was not immune. For everyone from distilleries to gin bars, the past 12 months have presented myriad challenges that it has taken great ingenuity, agility and mental fortitude to overcome. But, as we within it know, the gin sector has an in-built community spirit and sense of collective obligation that, like chainmail armour, has strengthened it against the ravages of the pandemic.
The 2021 Gin Magazine Awards are a celebration not only of excellence within the gin industry, but of those producers, people and places who have gone above and beyond to secure its future, for those who work within it and those who enjoy it from the outside.
Our Icons of Gin 2021 celebrate remarkable people and places who have set a shining example to others in this most difficult of years. Our World Gin Awards commend innovation and the pursuit of excellence by gin producers, at a time when it would have been easier to stick to the safe and the known. And this year’s four Hall of Fame inductees have made varied and peerless contributions to the gin world that have, in their own way, given it the strength to see 2020 through.
I hope you will join me in raising a glass to this year’s winners as you peruse our awards content, which starts on page 84.