'Mother's ruin' back as City gets first new gin distillery since Hogarthian era of excess

The first new gin distillery since the 18th-century Hogarthian heyday of London’s favourite spirit has opened in the City.

The owners of the site, just off Fleet Street, hope it will become a tourist attraction.

Capable of producing 200 bottles a day, the distillery becomes a bar at night which will eventually serve up to 180 brands at £5 for a large G&T.

The new City of London Dry Gin is being produced in two German-made copper stills that cost £100,000 to install.

Master distiller Jamie Baxter said the gin will be flavoured with juniper, citrus fruits, coriander, liquorice root and angelica. He described it as a “gin-lovers gin” with a “classic botanical profile”. It will sell for £29.95 a bottle. Visitors to the Gin Experience will tour the distillery and view the stills behind huge glass windows, watch a demonstration of how the spirit is made, and sample it. Team-building days, when office workers can come in and make their own batch, will also be offered.

Distillery owner Jonathan Clark, who has ploughed £250,000 into the project, hopes it will persuade City workers to stay in the area after work, rather than heading for Covent Garden or Soho to spend their money.

Gin drinking was the plague of London in the first half of the 18th century when, at the peak, there were 1,700 distilleries and 7,000 establishments serving “mother’s ruin” across the capital.

Social reformer Francis Place wrote that enjoyment for London’s poor at that time was limited to “sexual intercourse and drinking”, and that “drunkenness is by far the most desired”.

The drink’s reputation was immortalised in 1751 in William Hogarth’s engraving, Gin Lane.