Changing the Fate of Gin: Lesley Gracie and the Vision of Hendrick’s Gin

In 1999, when Hendrick’s first appeared, gin seemed like a category standing still, almost suspended in time. No one could have imagined that a gin produced with two vintage stills and enriched with two unlikely ingredients such as rose and cucumber could help redefine contemporary taste. Behind that gentle revolution stands Lesley Gracie, Master Distiller of Hendrick’s, a central figure in the creation and evolution of the brand.

In this interview, Gracie retraces an emblematic story. From the first Hendrick’s Original to Another Hendrick’s, under the sign of a duality that has always defined the brand: recognizable yet never predictable, elegant yet curious, faithful to its own DNA while remaining open to experimentation.

Looking back after 25 years of Hendrick’s, what surprises you the most about the journey from that first "unusual" gin to where it is today?

The incredible growth that we saw with Hendrick’s was a surprise as, at the time that we launched, gin was somewhat underappreciated and there were only a handful of dusty bottles on most bars. We started out slowly speaking to one bartender at a time and then it just took off in so many places all over the world.

People credit Hendrick’s with kick starting the “ginnaissance” and it’s good to think we did something to really boost the category. Walk into any bar now and that distinctive bottle is instantly recognisable, and I still love watching people pick up a bottle off the shelf in stores all over the world and think, “I made that!”

When Charles Gordon asked you to create a gin unlike anything else on the market, what kind of freedom did he give you? And what do you remember about that first meeting and that initial intuition?

Charlie was a real visionary; he could see a time when the world would fall in love with gin at a time when no one else could envisage it. Charlie wanted a bold new gin, unlike anything that came before. He wanted absolutely everything about it to be different about it – from how it was made, the aroma, flavour, to what it looked like. We were starting entirely from scratch and rewriting the map and that was incredibly exciting.

Charlie gave me two unusual vintage stills to use to create it, which he bought at auction a few decades before, and he wanted to incorporate rose and cucumber, as what is more quintessentially British than rose gardens and cucumber sandwiches?

So those were the pieces of the puzzle he gave me, and from there I had to figure out a creative solution to deliver on the promise of being entirely different. The trickiest bit was getting that fresh cucumber note into the gin, because if you apply heat to a cucumber it loses that fresh character. This is why the essences of rose and cucumber are the final step that makes Hendrick’s Hendrick’s.

Over the years, you have decisively helped reshape the image of gin, working in an industry that, especially at the beginning, was heavily male-dominated. How much did this aspect impact your journey? Do you think the spirits world has truly changed today from this perspective?

I started my career in spirits in the lab on the technical production side of things, which was always quite a mixed environment. Today, there are actually lots of incredible women working in gin. Be who you are unapologetically and people accept and respect that.

At the time, Hendrick’s entered a world dominated by much more traditional gins, which couldn't even imagine the possibility of using rose and cucumber. Back then, was the thought of shaking up the gin world so completely more exhilarating, or was there also an element of fear regarding how it might be received?

Joining Hendrick’s right at the beginning of its journey was a really exciting time. We had the freedom to do everything entirely differently and conforming to the status quo was not ever on the cards. We’ve always forged our own path and that’s really exciting.

In these 25 years, gin has gone from being an almost static category to one of the most creative and crowded in the spirits world. Which changes have struck you the most, for better or for worse?

The diversity of things that are out there is amazing. Gin has so much more possibilities – you can use plants from literally anywhere in the world. Other categories like whisky are much more restrictive on what can be used to make it. With gin there are infinite possibilities as to what you can play with. As long as the plant is edible, you’re fine.

The great thing has been watching how bartenders have responded to gin, from revisiting classic cocktails to experimenting with entirely different techniques and flavours. It’s been fascinating to watch how they have taken gin to this incredible level, and the category would not be where it is today without their passion and creativity.

I love the gin category and there’s not much I complain about, apart from perhaps when people over flavour the gin so you lose the juniper. Gin really should be juniper dominant at its core to be gin.

Hendrick’s has always maintained a peculiar balance: highly recognizable, yet never completely predictable. How do you protect a gin’s identity when everything around it is changing so rapidly?

Hendrick’s is made in the same unusual way as we first did in 1999. That core essence, the DNA of Hendrick's, has never changed. In fact, every innovation we’ve released since builds on the core Hendrick’s liquid and encourages people to rediscover it. We’re fortunate to have a really distinctive brand identity, the distinctive bottle shape, the way we show up in a bar or market, and the round flavour profile of all of our liquids sets us apart. I see flavours as shapes and am always looking for a round flavour profile with no spikey bits sticking out.

The Gin Palace feels almost like an extension of your imagination: greenhouses, experiments, botanicals, tools and curiosities. How much does the physical space matter in your creative process?

I’m a big believer in where you spend your time really impacts how you think and feel. The Hendrick's Gin Palace is a creative playground, and we designed it with my lab at the heart so it can be this space of experimentation.The wild flowers outside, the two green houses that have mediterranean and tropical climates really feed my creativity and allow for quick iteration of ideas. This really puts me in a headspace where I can try this with that, and then if it works we can figure out how to scale the liquid to commercial proportions.

Because we have the greenhouses and gardens we can cover the start of innovation through to production in one building. It’s great. I like it.

In your work, one often senses the approach of an explorer rather than "just" a master distiller. Where does your curiosity for botanicals, textures and unconventional flavor combinations come from?

I actually did a full expedition in search of unusual botanicals a while back, and set off with the help of an intrepid explorer and a tribe in Venezuela that had only been non-nomadic for a decade or so. They introduced me to so many unusual plants and saved me from tasting the ones that might have poisoned me.

My curiosity for botanicals and flavour comes from being a kid. My Mam and Dad liked gardening and I’d help them out. My mam used to grab leaves from plants and smell them, and that’s what I find myself doing now whenever I’m in a botanical garden or garden centre or just out on a walk. I’m a bit of a nuisance like that I suppose.

I guess I've always been curious, always thinking what if – what if we did that, combined these, tried this…

My first job while studying chemistry was at a pharmaceutical company, and my role was to discover what combination of flavours could work together to mask the often very strong flavours of medicine so it was palatable enough for patients to take.

Let’s talk about Another Hendrick’s: cacao and orange blossom are two very evocative ingredients, but also delicate to balance in a gin. What exactly were you looking for in this combination, and how does it change the perception of the Hendrick's profile?

It’s true cacao is such a powerful botanical with such a depth of flavour it’s unusual to use it in a gin as it can be very difficult to balance. But it has this incredible richness and when combined with the light, warm fragrance of orange blossom it really works – the orange blossom lightens and lifts it while keeping that rich, deep character.

Hendrick’s has always been a brand with a strong duality, the two unusual stills we use to create a spirit that is simultaneously light and yet complex, the rose and cucumber provide that final coup de grace. So for me cacao and orange blossom feels very Hendrick’s – it has those two diametrically opposed characters that when combined make something greater than the sum of its parts. It’s like looking at Hendricks from another angle, it’s a different side of the same brand: one brand, two different sensory dimensions.

If Hendrick’s Original taught the public that a gin could be “unusual,” what would you like Another Hendrick’s to teach today’s bartenders and consumers?

Another Hendrick’s can team with bartenders and consumers about the versatility of gin. Bartenders have so much room to play, and we always encourage them to step forward and we hope what we put in the bottle triggers their imagination to create some really different cocktails.

Also, Another Hendrick’s can teach us about balance and duality and the different dimensions that exist within us. Hendrick’s is not just one thing, it is also another thing. We all have these different sides of us inside us and bringing them to the fore doesn’t make us any less us, in fact, it makes us more us . Lean into what makes you different and embrace everything that makes you you.

After all these years of experiments, greenhouses, botanicals and distillations, is there still something you have never dared to put in a gin but that continues to intrigue you?

There’s a whole world of things out there. I’m currently playing with lots of things that many years ago I never would have thought about trying. I’m looking at them and seeing what we can do. The beauty of gin though is that there is no end to the possibilities of experimentation, so I’m always playing with something and thinking, “what if….”