Mother’s RUIN

Possibly the most glorious thing about the Glorious Revolution in 1688 is that when William of Orange came over from the Netherlands to claim the British throne as William III he brought gin with him. The new spirit – known initially by the Dutch word ‘genever’ – had a malt wine base and the defining flavour of juniper berries. Up until this point gin had been daintily sipped by the upper classes, yet by the 17th century it went mainstream.

Is there any tipple as British? An ice-cold G&T (or gin and tonic) in the garden, a James Bond-style martini at The Savoy, or a pink gin in the park: gin smooths the edges off our national reserve. With a whiff of seediness and the hint of ruin, there’s no drink as roguishly beguiling as gin, none as full of mischief. Philip Larkin, whose poem contains one of the most mouth-watering descriptions of the drink in English