The Craft Gin Revolution
Gin's transformation from corner-shop mixer to the most dynamic category in Western spirits happened fast. Between 2009 and 2020 the number of active gin distilleries in the United Kingdom alone went from roughly a dozen to more than 800. The catalyst was not fashion alone — it was a small number of producers who demonstrated that gin could be genuinely handmade, botanically complex, and worth sipping rather than drowning. The map now tracks hundreds of craft gin distilleries across Europe, the Americas, Asia, and beyond. Here is the context you need to appreciate what they are doing.
Sipsmith and the return of small-batch London distilling
In 2009, Sam Galsworthy and Fairfax Hall received a licence to operate a small copper pot still in a Hammersmith garage. The licence mattered more than the address: Sipsmith was the first new distillery permitted to operate a copper pot still in London in approximately 200 years, ending a period during which the city's spirits regulations effectively required industrial-scale operations. The significance was regulatory and symbolic. Sipsmith proved that a small copper pot still — theirs, named Prudence, holds 300 litres — could legally produce London Dry Gin in the city where the style originated, and that a premium price point for a genuinely artisan-produced gin was commercially viable. Within a decade, dozens of London micro-distilleries had followed.
Sipsmith's VJOP (Very Juniper Over Proof) and their standard London Dry remain exemplars of the style: the classic London Dry profile of juniper-forward, citrus-lifted, spice-backed spirit, produced in small batches with hand-sourced botanicals and meticulous cuts.
Hendrick's and the unusual ingredients movement
Hendrick's Gin, produced by William Grant & Sons at their Girvan distillery complex in Ayrshire, Scotland, occupies a category of its own. Launched in 1999, it was among the first major gin brands to explicitly market unusual botanicals as a selling point. The signature botanicals — Bulgarian Rosa damascena rose petals and cucumber — were not traditional London Dry additions, and their presence in a widely distributed gin signalled that the category's boundaries were elastic. Hendrick's uses a dual-distillation process: a Bennett pot still and a Carter-Head still run in parallel, their distillates blended with the botanical infusions added post-distillation. The result is a lighter-bodied, floral, cucumber-accented gin that sits apart from the classic juniper-dominant styles. The quinine from cinchona bark in the botanical bill adds a subtle bitterness that underpins the floral notes.
Monkey 47: botanical density in the Black Forest
Monkey 47 Schwarzwald Dry Gin is produced in a small distillery near Lossburg in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The number 47 refers to both the botanical count and the bottling strength (47% ABV). The botanical list encompasses 47 ingredients including lingonberries, spruce tips, verbena, and cranberry alongside more conventional gin botanicals, all of them sourced from or connected to the Black Forest region where possible. The spirit is macerated and distilled in traditional pot stills, then rested for 90 days in earthenware containers before bottling. The resulting gin is intensely complex — herbaceous, spice-laden, with a distinctive pine resin quality from the spruce — and it demonstrated that gin botanical sourcing could reflect a specific regional landscape. Monkey 47 became one of the flagship references for terroir-driven European craft gin.
Roku: Japanese precision in botanicals
Suntory's Roku Gin is distilled in Osaka using six Japanese botanicals — sakura flower, sakura leaf, yuzu peel, sencha tea, gyokuro tea, and sansho pepper — alongside the ten conventional gin botanicals in a mix of pot and column distillation. Each Japanese botanical is distilled separately during the season it is harvested to capture peak flavour, and the seasonal batches are blended for the final product. The result is a gin with classical structure under a distinctly Japanese aromatic layer: floral cherry blossom, green tea astringency, and the unique numbing-citrus quality of sansho pepper. Roku positioned Japanese spirits craft — the attention to process detail and ingredient sourcing that distinguishes Yamazaki whisky or Nikka's output — in the gin category.
Style definitions that matter
London Dry Gin is a legal definition, not a geographic one. Any gin produced anywhere in the world qualifies as London Dry if it is made by re-distillation of agricultural ethanol in the presence of natural botanicals (no artificial flavour additions), with juniper predominant, and with no additions after distillation other than water and a very small amount of sweetener. Sipsmith in London and Tanqueray's primary production in Scotland both qualify; the location is irrelevant.
Plymouth Gin is different: it is a geographic indication protecting gin produced in Plymouth, England, with a specific botanical recipe and minimum strength. Currently Blackfriars Distillery holds the sole production licence, making Plymouth a genuine single-source protected name in a way that London Dry is not. Plymouth style is slightly earthier and less juniper-forward than classic London Dry.
Old Tom Gin is a sweetened, heavier-bodied style that predates the modern dry gin era and was the dominant form in Georgian England. It fell out of fashion for a century and has been revived by craft distillers including Hayman's and several American small-batch producers as a historically authentic option for classic cocktails like the Tom Collins.
Navy strength
Navy strength gin, defined as any gin bottled at 57% ABV or above, takes its name from the British Royal Navy's historical practice of storing gunpowder and spirit in proximity: at 57% ABV (100 British proof), a spirit-soaked gunpowder will still ignite, confirming the spirit has not been diluted. Practical history aside, the higher strength amplifies botanical intensity dramatically. Sipsmith V.J.O.P. at 57.7%, Plymouth Navy Strength, and Hayman's Royal Dock are standard references. Many craft distillers now produce a navy strength variant specifically designed for cocktail use, where dilution from ice and mixers would overwhelm a standard-strength gin but barely registers at 57%.
Botanical sourcing and small-batch practice
The operational distinction between craft gin and industrial gin production often comes down to botanical sourcing frequency, maceration time, and cut discipline. Large industrial gin production uses continuous columns with botanical baskets through which spirit vapour passes; the process is efficient but limits the distiller's ability to work with fragile fresh botanicals. Small-batch pot still production — even a 500-litre pot still — allows individual botanical macerations in spirit before distillation, fresh ingredient additions like cucumber or rose petal added directly to the still charge, and hands-on foreshot-to-hearts-to-tails cuts that manage the aromatic evolution of each run.
The best craft distilleries build relationships with specific herb growers, source juniper from particular Albanian or Macedonian mountain harvests (where most of the world's gin-grade juniper originates), and adjust botanical ratios seasonally based on actual aromatic intensity testing rather than fixed recipes. Visiting these producers is fundamentally different from a tour of an industrial plant, and most distilleries on the map that fall into the genuine craft category welcome discussion of their sourcing in that detail.