Gin Glorious Gin: How Mother's Ruin Became the Spirit of London

In and out of both legality and popularity - gin is the only drink to be simultaneously shorthand for metropolitan glamour and alcoholic squalor. It crosses paths with all professions and cuts through class - writers and artists, politicians and scientists, royalty - gin is a great leveller. 'Gin Glorious Gin' is funny, quirky, interesting, informative and full of famous names - Dickens to Churchill, Hogarth to Hemingway - and unknown voices who impacted our wonderful capital city.
A vibrant cultural history of London seen through the prism of its most iconic drinkLeading the reader through the underbelly of the Georgian city via the Gin Craze, detouring through the Empire (with a G&T in hand), to the emergence of cocktail bars in the West End, the story is brought right up to date with the resurgence of class in a glass—the Ginnaissance. As gin has crossed paths with Londoners of all classes and professions over the past 300 years it has become shorthand for metropolitan glamour and alcoholic squalor in equal measure. In and out of both legality and popularity, gin is a drink that has seen it all. This quirky, informative account is full of famous faces—from Dickens to Churchill, Hogarth to Dr Johnson—and introduces many previously unknown Londoners, hidden from history, who have shaped the city and its signature drink.