Old Bakery Gin (50cl) NV

Founder Ian Puddick already had two other highly successful businesses: one deals with crisis communication; the other with underground leak detection! He can boast as customers the Royal household and the Foreign Office too. To use as a headquarters, Ian bought a few run-down buildings (an old bakery, grain store and stables for the bakery’s horses) in a mews in Palmers Green, north London. He then hit a planning nightmare in the shape of the original 200 foot chimney (sadly unsafe and now taken down). More happily, he discovered the property also once had an illicit distillery. Being a gin lover, he vowed to search out the original recipe, and this is the delicious, juniper-led result. He’s done a great job – just last year it won Silver.