Hayman's

Few gin brands can trace a direct family line back to the Victorian era, but Hayman's is genuinely one of them. The story begins in 1863, when pharmacist James Hayman purchased a small distillery in Chelsea, London. He'd spent time in Canada and the States before returning with a clear idea of what he wanted to make: gins that leaned on fresh citrus, inspired by the Spanish oranges and lemons he sourced from Covent Garden Market. That instinct for citrus-forward botanicals proved influential far beyond his own label.

The family never really left. Christopher Hayman joined the business in 1969 and became one of the most respected voices in British gin during the category's long drought before the craft revival. His grandchildren James and Miranda joined in the early 2000s, making Hayman's the last family of original London distillers still producing gin in the city. The distillery is now in Balham, a few miles south of Chelsea, but the recipes and the philosophy have stayed consistent.

Hayman's makes a broad range of gins, including their London Dry, Old Tom, and a sloe gin, distributed across dozens of countries. In 2025 they added London 0%, their first alcohol-free expression. It draws on natural juniper, coriander and citrus botanicals, served best over ice with tonic and a wedge of grapefruit. The flavour sits close to a proper G&T without tipping into artificial sweetness, which is a harder balance to strike than it looks.

At £18 for a 70cl bottle, London 0% sits at the affordable end of the premium AF spirits market. It's not positioned as a novelty or a side project: the bottle carries the same square design as the rest of the range, and the botanical brief is recognisably Hayman's. For a house with 160-odd years of juniper experience, that continuity makes a fair amount of sense.

The Collection

London 0%