About the author
I’m the author of three gin books – GINS of the NORTH WEST, YORKSHIRE’S GINS + The GIN CLAN. The GINS of the NORTH WEST features the gins and their makers and distilleries in Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumbria, Manchester, Liverpool. I’m also a journalist writing about a wide variety of things from tech, education and careers to food, drink and travel and working on the production desk of a national newspaper.
I love finding the story behind the gins and talking about them and it’s a privilege to meet the wonderful makers across the north of Britain.
It’s also been a personal journey to new places, favourite haunts and almost forgotten memories. It’s given me the chance to do completely new things as well.
In my first book, The GIN CLAN, I wrote about Scottish gin because I had some knowledge about the industry – and and it’s home. It was such fun – and hard work – researching, exploring … and tasting. But which area should I cover next?
It was pretty simple – Yorkshire and it was for three reasons really. First my mother’s family are from Yorkshire; my publisher is a Yorkshire company and thirdly I lived half my childhood in Yorkshire. So, family-wise I have Yorkshire cousins; very fond memories of visits to my grandparents and then all the “growing up” of my Yorkshire teens.
My publisher Great Northern Books (www.gnbooks.co.uk) already had a Yorkshire beer book (The Yorkshire Beer Bible) so it was keen to add gin alongside it.
But, if truth be known, with the internet and a few site visits I could have written about any part of the UK – or beyond. However, Yorkshire was a fantastic choice. With all its great food, beers and hospitality, Yorkshire is inevitably a place people were going to make great gin. And sixty gins – all profiled in the book – are proof I was right to focus on the county.
What should be the next stop? As I waited for YORKSHIRE’S GINS to be published I started to look at another area – the West County seemed to hold promise and I surfed around Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. But I wasn’t sure if there was enough material so was also looking at Wales.
As YORKSHIRE’S GINS was published the world went into Lockdown and everything was up in the air. Through those weeks I realised I wouldn’t want to be travelling by air (to the south west) any time soon, so I pivoted to the one part of the UK I could drive to – the North-West. Quickly it stacked up as the basis for a book. And the idea of the area west from the Pennines, between the Solway Firth and the Dee took shape.
Understandably, it was a while after the pandemic before the publisher wanted to take the risk of commissioning me. I’d done a lot of the basic research so when I got the green light it was all systems go and I headed down to Cumbria to visit the makers there. Several months of hard graft before the manuscript for GINS of THE NORTH WEST winged its way down to Great Northern Books and the rest is history….
Read about my Yorkshire gin journey here
Want to taste the gins?
Check out the makers’ websites (all the books’ entries list them). Many have online shops and are using post and couriers; some are delivering locally personally; bottle shops also stock neighbours’ gins and often deliver locally and there are online retailers – like Master of Malt – in business too.
Want to buy the books?
If you can buy direct from Great Northern Books we all benefit – and there are often deals on the website which make the books the same price as elsewhere. You can also order signed copies. GNBooks
The GIN CLAN 