World Gin Day falls on the second Saturday of June - 13 June in 2026 - and Cape Town, with one of the most exciting craft-gin scenes on the planet, has every reason to celebrate. Here is the quick history of juniper's favourite spirit, and the local bottles worth pouring.
From "Dutch courage" to Mother's Ruin
Gin began life as genever, a juniper-flavoured malt spirit from the Low Countries, originally used as a medicine. English soldiers fighting in the 17th-century Low Countries took a shot before battle - the origin of the phrase "Dutch courage" - and brought the taste home.
In 18th-century London it exploded. Cheap, strong and everywhere, gin fuelled the chaotic "Gin Craze," earning the nickname Mother's Ruin. Regulation eventually tamed it, and the invention of the column still gave us the cleaner London Dry style we know today. Gin's great companion, tonic water, arrived via the British in India, where quinine was used against malaria - and the G&T was born.
The modern gin-aissance
After decades in vodka's shadow, gin roared back in the 2000s. Small-batch distillers started treating botanicals like a chef treats spice - and nowhere embraced this more enthusiastically than the Western Cape, where indigenous fynbos gives local gin a flavour you simply cannot get anywhere else.
Cape Town gins worth knowing
- Hope on Hopkins (Salt River) - Cape Town's first craft gin distillery (2015). Their Salt River gin uses wild rosemary and buchu over a 100% South African barley base.
- Woodstock Gin Company - botanical-forward gins built on bases of beer, wine or tea, with rooibos, buchu and honeybush.
- Inverroche - the pioneer of South African fynbos gin, with its Classic, Amber and Verdant expressions made from Wild Cape botanicals.
- Musgrave - best known for its softer pink gin, infused with rosehip and rosewater.
- New Harbour Distillery (Woodstock) - a carbon-neutral distillery recycling its by-products back to local farms.
Cape Town even has its own inner-city Gin Route linking several of these distilleries - a great day out for a team or a group of friends.
Celebrate gin with your team
Gin is the spirit of the moment - and a brilliant theme for a team event. At Spirit Games, gin already stars in our signature Cape Sunset cocktail, and we can build a gin-led experience that brings the Cape's botanical story to life. Best of all, we are fully mobile, so the whole thing comes to your office.