Low spirits

You may have noticed that we’re in the throes of a 21st-century Gin Craze. It’s not as serious as the one which began in the 1720s, when London was awash with the stuff, much of it adulterated with turpentine, alum and sulphuric acid, but it’s still an irritation with no signs of an imminent hangover.

The big difference between then and now is that sales and marketing ‘creatives’ have been let loose to talk up ‘boutique’ distilleries with fancy names, trendy bottles and romantic back stories about Uncle Jack dusting off his great-grandfather’s rusting stills down a remote back alley.

I found one gin, for example, with a tag line that says ‘intricately realised’. What on earth does that mean — apart from justifying a price of £35 a bottle if ordering direct or £42 when buying from the likes of Majestic?

There was another, called Conker Spirit Gin and produced by Dorset’s ‘first gin distillery, nestled in the back streets of Bournemouth’, according to its website. Look out for ‘Dorset notes of elderberries, samphire and hand-picked New Forest gorse flowers’. Yours for £35.95.

There’s even a Palmers (no relation) Dry Gin, produced by the Midlands-based Langley Distillery and launched only a couple of weeks ago. The blurb says it has a ‘wonderful grapefruit curl that leaves you wanting more’. It looks impressive on my drinks tray, but I’m not sure it’s any better than Tanqueray No. Ten.

The number of distilleries in Britain has doubled in the past seven years, with no fewer than 500 UK gins from which to choose — make that 6,000 worldwide. Sales in Britain of ‘Madam Geneva’ — as gin was once known — have exceeded £1 billion a year for the first time.

But let’s not get sozzled by this.