Gin Glorious Gin is a vibrant cultural history of London seen through the prism of its most iconic drink. Leading 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 three hundred 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.
Gin Glorious Gin is quirky, informative, 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.
Gin Glorious Gin : How Mother's Ruin Became the Spirit of London
Description
Author Description
Olivia graduated with a scholarship in Modern History from St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where she remained for her master's degree. In her final year, she won the Rupert Murdoch Scholarship for student journalism. She worked as a trainee journalist at the Daily Mail before leaving to write Gin Glorious Gin last year. Olivia lives in London, where she is a freelance writer, and a taster of many gins. This is her first book.
She tweets from @tweetingolivia.