65 new gin distilleries in the UK in 1 year?! How can our liver keep up?

If only there were more months in the year! A study by accountancy company UHY Hacker Young has shown that distillery license applications in the UK are skyrocketing, from 5 in the year to March 2010 to 20 in 2014 to a whopping 65 between March 2014 and 2015.

What’s driving this boom? According to the firm, “Fashionable young consumers are searching for authenticity in their drinks, and they are not afraid to pay higher prices for it.” A trend the firm says began in Shoreditch - which itself adopted the trend from the rise in cocktail culture happening in the States - has now gone national.

If the trend isn’t great for the nation’s collective liver, it could work wonders for the nation’s wallet. Seen as luxury items, the nation’s spirits - particularly Scotch whisky - have always been in high demand at home and abroad, a demand that the recently-established micro-distilleries are fueling. Gin in particular is pegged for rapid growth with much of the demand for the quintessential British spirit coming from overseas. 

Obviously, as per the nature of our club, we’re very excited about the rise in craft distilleries at home and abroad and will continue to find and select the best of the gins out there. But with so many new distilleries and gins emerging, maybe we should become a Gin of the Week Club