THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT

Gin is a relatively easy spirit to make. Unlike whisky, you don’t have to wait three years for it to mature or even start with your own spirit, although the better distillers do. Essentially, gin is flavoured vodka and it’s simply a question of infusing a base spirit with botanicals (fruits, leaves, seeds and berries). The most important botanical is juniper (the berries are used), as without it, gin cannot be called gin.

Traditionally, the most popular style of gin has been London, which contains a high percentage of juniper, along with more traditional flavourings, such as angelica, cinnamon, citrus peel, coriander, liquorice and orris root.

Many new gins play down those bitter notes with floral ingredients, such as rose, elderflower and lavender. Sloe gin, of course, has been around for a while, but other fruits, such as damson, are becoming popular. Wilkin & Sons, producer of Tiptree jams, has collaborated with Hayman’s to produce a strawberry flavoured gin liqueur based on its Little Scarlet conserve.

Gin, like food, is even becoming seasonal. There’s more emphasis on fruit and flowers in the summer, and spice in the autumn and winter. Several distillers, such as Eden Mill of St Andrews, are producing gins that are flavoured with hops. Others like Pickering’s in Edinburgh are ageing them lightly in whisky casks to give a more smoky character.

This new generation of gin doesn’t come cheap, but as Marks &

Spencer’s spirits buyer Jenny Rea points out: “A bottle of gin may well last you for weeks. You’ll drink a bottle of wine in a couple of nights.”

How long can the gin bubble last though? Geraldine Coates of gintime.com, and an observer of the gin scene for more than

20 years, accepts there’s a risk that new producers will price themselves out of the market. But

Jared Brown of Sipsmith is more optimistic: “If there’s one spirit England is identified with, it’s gin. The Scots and Irish have their whisky, the French have their cognac, but gin is our national drink.”