A GIN TO REMEMBER
It’s a wet and blustery day in Girvan, southwest Scotland, with the UK caught between fierce Atlantic storms, but our group has found a mercifully dry half hour to visit the beach. I’m walking with Lesley Gracie, Hendrick’s master distiller, and her elderly but sprightly golden retriever, Jock. She’s telling me the story of how she came to be one of the most well-respected people in gin distilling (although she’d never phrase it like that): after starting a career in pharmaceuticals, she moved to Scotland with her husband and accepted a job in quality control at William Grant & Sons. A decade later, in 1999, she was approached by the company’s owner, Charlie Gordon, to make a gin that stood out from others on the market. The rest, as they say, is history.
“But I wouldn’t do anything differently now,” Lesley says, smiling contentedly.
There is a reason we have come to this beach near the imposing Trump Turnberry Hotel: it provided the inspiration for the
