How gin has become the UK’s favourite tipple

You can buy gin advent calendars, gin marshmallows and even gin cheese.

So it’s no surprise that the spirit has been named as the nation’s favourite tipple – albeit in the more traditional form of a G&T.

The drink topped an annual poll of 2,000 people by the Wine and Spirits Trade Association (WSTA), up from third place last year.

Some 29 per cent of drinkers named the gin and tonic their favourite spirit, ahead of whisky (25 per cent) and vodka (23 per cent). This is matched by a boom in sales – a record 47million bottles of gin were bought in Britain this year, up by seven million on 2016.

Once considered a drink for spinster aunts, the spirit, traditionally flavoured with juniper, has become popular with younger drinkers. Earlier this year the drink was added to the official basket of goods used by the Office of National Statistics to calculate inflation.

The new-found demand may have something to do with a trend for adding exotic flavourings, such as seaweed and rhubarb. There is even a Christmas gin available, with frankincense and myrrh added.

The drink’s newfound popularity could be to do with the addition of exotic flavourings, like seaweed and rhubarb

Despite the surge in popularity, gin still has a little way to go to beat whisky and vodka in terms of sales. Nevertheless, it has undergone a remarkable journey from the scourge of the working classes to a style statement.

Cheap and often distilled in bathtubs, in 18th-century London gin was hawked by barbers, grocers and even sold on market-stalls.

Such was its impact that it was demonised as ‘mother’s ruin’.

The spirit went out of fashion until the 1970s, when the G&T became the dinner party drink of choice.

By 2016, 45 gin distilleries opened in the UK in that year alone, according to HMRC, taking the total to an estimated 273.