Author Ian Buxton explains why Durham plays a strong part in his book 101 Gins to Try Before You Die

WE’RE in the middle of a new Gin Craze. From being the drink of choice of middle-aged, Jaguar-driving golfers and an easy target for stand-up comedians, today it’s harder to find anything hipper on the international bar scene.

Durham’s contribution to the spirits revolution is the brainchild of ex-NHS chief Jon Chadwick who, following a trip to the US where he encountered micro-distilling, was able to use his redundancy payment and other private capital to establish County Durham’s first (legal) distillery.

He also had the nous to appoint Jessica Tomlinson as his chief distiller. She is not only one of the very few female distillers but also one of the highest qualified, holding both a Master’s Degree in Chemistry and the MSc in Brewing and Distilling from Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University. On top of that, at 26 Jessica – who was born and brought up in Hexham – is thought to be one of the youngest women in her job in the whole country. She has been working at Durham Gin’s Langley Park Brewery, three miles outside the city centre, for the past year.

The North-East of England isn’t, on first sight, be the most obvious location for a new distillery, but Durham Gin taps into fierce local pride and a sense of identity that should provide a sound basis for future growth. And I certainly rate it high enough to include it in my new book, 101 Gins To Try Before You Die

Several things make it stand out. The distillery has commissioned its own still, but not from the usual makers. Instead, the 400-litre pot still with botanicals basket – for all those herbs and spices which, when added to gin’s traditional juniper flavour base, give gin its taste – along with a highly traditional condenser has come from Portugal. It has a distinctly antique look, but under the guidance of distiller Jessica Tomlinson seems to work effectively enough.

For the moment, what makes this small-batch operation stand out is the addition of pink peppercorns in the botanicals. It may not sound much, but the aroma really hits your nose as the spirit hits the glass. The nose is fresh, sweet and appealing; the pink peppercorns deliver that all-important pepper hit, but tempered with a soft sweetness. Durham also offers a very forward, pronounced and confident juniper aroma with undertones of orange. Two other unusual botanicals are celery seed and elderflower.

Made in batches of 200 bottles at a time, Durham gin is still modestly priced for such handcrafted limited production. The tall bottle is distinguished by its mauve wax seal, directly fired branding and the broken starburst logo (inspired by the stained glass of Durham Cathedral) you glimpse through the bottle. It’s a confident and stylish effort from a new company, but then, as its owner Jon Chadwick proclaims, their hope is that people will drink less but better.

Many gin distillers have other variants on their product. Durham doesn’t – although it does also make its own blend of vodka. And even though gin has been absolutely on-trend for the last four or five years, it’s vodka that still dominates the spirit market, followed by whisky, with gin still a distant third.

Yet its image is changing fast. Indeed, the history of gin in Britain is one of constant change. From its medicinal origins it made its way on to Dutch ships during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) and then, helped by tax breaks from 1690, to the streets of London.

This was the start of gin’s most notorious era, when the gin craze took over to such an extent that an estimated one house in four in parts of London was selling some form of spirits. According to Middlesex magistrates in 1721, gin was “the principle cause of all the vice and debauchery committed among the inferior sort of people.”

Ever since the working-class gin craze was finally killed off by taxes in the 19th century, gin has been moving steadily upmarket. Having swept round the British Empire, gin enjoyed its next moment of fame and popularity during the cocktail boom of the Roaring Twenties. It was ultra-fashionable, acceptable in society and crossed the Atlantic to conquer America. The advent of Prohibition would not appear to have significantly dented its appeal, with the ‘bathtub gin’ of legend (and all too often, fact) lending it a brittle glamour and racy charm.

As late as 1942, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) describes his bar in Casablanca as a ‘gin joint’ – gin still carrying the image of something clandestine, outside the law and carrying the fascination of forbidden fruit.

By the 1950s, however, it had shaken off this raffish clothing and become respectable: now it was something served in golf clubs to the middle-aged and middle-class. Long-established brands began to fail, and old favourites such as Lemon Gin, Orange Gin and Old Tom fell away one by one. But gin was just biding its time. In today’s gin revolution, pop-up gin bars are springing up all over the country, and new varieties of “artisanal” gins are hitting the market virtually every week. It’s hard to keep pace with them all - but I’m doing my best!

  • Ian Buxton is the author of 101 Gins to Try Before You Die (Birlinn, £12.99). He will be appearing at the Durham Book Festival at 5.30pm on Saturday