2/2Gin becomes a hipster drink － by Amie Tsang, NYT Jan. 15, 2019 ジンの人気復活
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.
Although they didn't give him a recipe, they identified several ingredients used there.
With that and some guesswork, he came up with Old Bakery Gin, which is now sold at Harrods and Fortnum & Mason.
Mr. Puddick’s tale is one of many origin stories whetting the appetite of the new generation of gin connoisseurs. Oscar Dodd, a Fortnum & Mason buyer, said shoppers often wanted to learn more about the provenance or ingredients of their purchases.
“They're nearly all looking for something new and exciting,” he said. “There’s a social currency with gin. You want to introduce your friends.”
Still, the proliferation of new gins is a challenge for relatively neophytes like Mr. Puddick.
That brand loyalty, getting people to choose your brand above others, is definitely getting tougher,” he said.
Sticking to the basics
Beefeater, a London staple since the 1800s, is sticking to the basics even as rivals keep sprouting up. If the rise of sloe gin and snow globes with gin bottles leads to consumer fatigue, the company wants to make sure its product remains the main ingredient in gin-based cocktails. “Gin is designed to work in many different directions,” Desmond Payne, Beefeater’s master distiller, said. “Very few people drink gin on its own. Gin should have the ability to be versatile and in different directions.”
Beefeater welcomes the industry’s growth and has even produced some editions of new blends. Still, Mr. Payne is wary of making something too different from the product that the company sells 2.9 million nine-liter cases of a year.
The risk with some of the experimental gins that have emerged, Mr. Payne said, is that “they're too much about one particular thing,” limiting their use in all types of cocktails.
Looking beyond Britain
Mr. Galsworthy of Sipsmith expects the gin boom to stall at some point. “Make no bones about it,” he said, “the proliferation of it endangereds the category.”
He and other distillers are looking beyond Britain for new customers, sometimes getting snapped up by big alcohol companies that hope to capitalize on a global gin market that, according to the research firm Euromonitor, grew to about $15.5 billion in 2017 from $10.5 billion in 2007.
In 2016, Sipsmith was acquired by Beam Suntory, which has also acquired Japanese and Spanish gins. Diageo, which owns popular brands like Gordon’s and Tanqueray, added a Japanese-inspired gin to its offering. 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 custom-built distillery in Inner Mongolia, China. Peddlers Gin, a Shanghai brand, recently signed an international distribution deal. And new distilleries are popping up in places such as Australia, Liechtenstein and the United States, said Nicholas Cook, the 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.”
Joseph Judd, who helped found Peddlers Gin, said that even as the company sought to increase its global reach, especially in Asia, it was hewing to the liquor’s European heritage.
“I think it would be difficult to come with purely Chinese ingredients and disregard the British perspective,” Mr. Judd said. “With gin, you have to respect the process and history.”
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.
Although they didn't give him a recipe, they identified several ingredients used there.
With that and some guesswork, he came up with Old Bakery Gin, which is now sold at Harrods and Fortnum & Mason.
Mr. Puddick’s tale is one of many origin stories whetting the appetite of the new generation of gin connoisseurs. Oscar Dodd, a Fortnum & Mason buyer, said shoppers often wanted to learn more about the provenance or ingredients of their purchases.
“They're nearly all looking for something new and exciting,” he said. “There’s a social currency with gin. You want to introduce your friends.”
Still, the proliferation of new gins is a challenge for relatively neophytes like Mr. Puddick.
That brand loyalty, getting people to choose your brand above others, is definitely getting tougher,” he said.
Sticking to the basics
Beefeater, a London staple since the 1800s, is sticking to the basics even as rivals keep sprouting up. If the rise of sloe gin and snow globes with gin bottles leads to consumer fatigue, the company wants to make sure its product remains the main ingredient in gin-based cocktails. “Gin is designed to work in many different directions,” Desmond Payne, Beefeater’s master distiller, said. “Very few people drink gin on its own. Gin should have the ability to be versatile and in different directions.”
Beefeater welcomes the industry’s growth and has even produced some editions of new blends. Still, Mr. Payne is wary of making something too different from the product that the company sells 2.9 million nine-liter cases of a year.
The risk with some of the experimental gins that have emerged, Mr. Payne said, is that “they're too much about one particular thing,” limiting their use in all types of cocktails.
Looking beyond Britain
Mr. Galsworthy of Sipsmith expects the gin boom to stall at some point. “Make no bones about it,” he said, “the proliferation of it endangereds the category.”
He and other distillers are looking beyond Britain for new customers, sometimes getting snapped up by big alcohol companies that hope to capitalize on a global gin market that, according to the research firm Euromonitor, grew to about $15.5 billion in 2017 from $10.5 billion in 2007.
In 2016, Sipsmith was acquired by Beam Suntory, which has also acquired Japanese and Spanish gins. Diageo, which owns popular brands like Gordon’s and Tanqueray, added a Japanese-inspired gin to its offering. 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 custom-built distillery in Inner Mongolia, China. Peddlers Gin, a Shanghai brand, recently signed an international distribution deal. And new distilleries are popping up in places such as Australia, Liechtenstein and the United States, said Nicholas Cook, the 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.”
Joseph Judd, who helped found Peddlers Gin, said that even as the company sought to increase its global reach, especially in Asia, it was hewing to the liquor’s European heritage.
“I think it would be difficult to come with purely Chinese ingredients and disregard the British perspective,” Mr. Judd said. “With gin, you have to respect the process and history.”
