#gin

#gin

You could feel that in New York this year, where the 2025 New York World Spirits Competition handed Lighthouse Gin the Best of Class Gin trophy and set two very different bottles alongside it as finalists: Devil's Grin Gin and Tanqueray No. TEN. Together, they outline where the category is headed-precision on one side, layered regional character on the other, and a benchmark that reminds everyone what classic balance feels like in the glass.

The UK's Food and Drink Federation recently released data on imports and exports for the first half of 2025 - and it sure looks like Americans are picking up more of a taste for imported gin. Placing ninth on the Federation's list of top 10 exports for the first six months of 2025 was gin, with the volume shipped up 6.3% from a comparable period in 2024. The value of this gin was also up significantly from the same period last year - specifically, by 17.6%.

Will Thompson isn't terribly impressed with the state of gin these days. When the owner of Sunny's in Miami goes out on the town in search of a Martini, he often faces a bit of a dilemma. "I look at the backbar and there's six gins that I think all taste kinda like shit," he says. He feels there's been a downturn in overall gin quality and proof level.

"Gin in a tin. Oh! It's Diddly Squat Farm Shop gin... Well, it is at least a gin. Smells ginny, very promising."

Hops have such a dynamic aromatic profile, and we saw an opportunity to bring something genuinely unique to the gin category. At its heart, gin is all about botanical expression and we wanted to explore what hops could bring.