The offices of the Bank of America Merrill Lynch on King
Edward Street was the venue for this the seventh annual Distillers Debate and
at the kind invitation of the Master Distiller, the Mistress and I went along.
The motion was “This House Believes that the Gin Boom has Reached its Peak”.
What a subject!
After a refreshing glass of pure water to welcome the 170 or
so guests from the Livery, from the Distilling trade and from business, the
debate began. But before battle commenced, a show of hands was taken regarding
the motion. This revealed that 20% were For and 80% Against; a fairly strong
split. Under the expert chairmanship of Trevor Stirling of the Distillers
Company, the protagonists locked horns!
Proposing the motion was Ms Dawn Davies, Buyer at Speciality
Drinks who was seconded by Ed Mundy, Beverage Analysist at Jeffries. The
Against camp was led by Ms Sophia Shaw-Brown, Senior Insights Manager at IWSR
and the seconder was David T Smith, a drinks writer.
To say that each side was passionate would be an understatement
and each produced endless statistics to support their case. There is no doubt
that the gin boom is the most exciting success stories of a generation with a
plethora of craft and flavoured gins flooding the market both home and abroad.
And it is in other countries, particularly South America and India that huge
growth potential is evident. But is there room for any more gins? Both sides
argued their corner.
After a Q&A session from the floor the all-important
final vote was taken, again via a show of hands. The result was 30% For the
motion with 70% Against, a significant swing to the House. And for this reason,
the Motion was carried! Who knew?!
After all this energetic debating, it was time to try a few
well-chosen gins. This gave us a chance to mingle with guests and to thank the
Master Distiller, Martin Riley and his team for their hospitality and good humour.
As for the result, well only time will tell but we enjoyed discussing it!
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