A Nostalgic Wander Down Gin Lane

'Gin Lane' by William Hogarth

I was at a tasting of Bloom gin a few weeks ago at London's Graphic Bar, home of the Juniper Club. If you're nice to the staff they will produce a bottle from behind the bar and offer it to you with a chorus of sniggers. It is a gin brand called Hogarth. I seem to remember it doesn't taste as foul as you're expecting after the, erm, bouquet—which is headily redolent of window cleaning fluid. But the strangest thing about this brand is that anyone thought it was a good idea to name a gin after printmaker William Hogarth, who famously condemned gin drinking with his depiction of 'Gin Lane', a place where society was collapsing from the evils of the drink. (His solution was for us all to drink wholesome beer instead.) On the front label it simply says, "Over two centuries ago Hogarth set standards of excellence which have withstood the test of time. This superlative London Gin is of a quality worthy of his name." Surely someone is taking the piss here?

Anyway, I assumed that the product in question was an ill-conceived curio that fell flat on its face when launched. So I was surprised, and perversely delighted, when, on a stag weekend in Cardiff I went up to a bar and was confronted by a whopping bottle of the stuff squatting over an optic. I didn't order it.

A proud bottle of Hogarth gin on sale in a Cardiff pub (which I shan't name)