York Gin

Five friends formed the York Gin Company at The Swan pub in February 2016 — Paul Crossman the landlord, Pete McNichol before him, Harry Cooke, Emma Godivala, and Jon Farrow, who died before the first bottles poured and is remembered in the venture he helped will into being. Self-funded from the start, it became York's first legal distillery, producing at Murton Lane with a boutique working distillery and gin school in the city; the shop trades from Sir Thomas Herbert's House on Pavement, a carved sixteenth-century landmark that sells the city as hard as the spirit. Five of the six permanent gins carry international golds, and the founding four still run it. Gin as civic project — York, being York, approves.