46% alc/vol 70cl

Tynemouth Old Tom is the newest edition to the Tynemouth Gin family. Based on an old style of gin from the 18th century, Tynemouth Old Tom gin is a slightly lighter and sweeter style of gin. Tynemouth Old Tom Gin uses honey as a sweetener rather than sugar or artificial flavourings giving it a fresh, natural taste.

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Old Tom plays a significant role in the history of gin. Quaffed by the bucketload during the 18th and 19th centuries, it served as something of a bridge between Dutch Genever and London Dry, drier than the former and sweeter than the latter. Old Tom Gin emerged in an era of heavy drinking and primitive distilling. The column still hadn’t yet been invented, so spirits were harsh at the best of times. Keen to increase profit margins, the unscrupulous distillers of this era would add to this by cutting their spirits with turpentine and sulphuric acid, creating gins that were barely palatable and often deadly. Still, the English are a determined bunch when it comes to drinking and they turned to gin in their droves. In order to make it drinkable, distillers sweetened the juniper-laced spirit with liquorice or sugar, thus creating a whole new category. The Old Tom name has more origins than the entire Marvel universe put together. There are many, many stories claiming to reveal the etymology behind the spirit, each treading a line that falls somewhere between the logical and the ridiculous. One commonly heard story points towards the biography of author Captain Dudley Bradstreet, who claims to have invented a one-stop gin shop – known by history as a Puss & Mew shop –  that could help enterprising booze hounds get their fix following the Gin Act of 1736. In the window of a little building in London he hung a sign featuring an old tomcat. Beneath the cat’s paw there was a slot into which the city’s thirsty masses could drop a coin. Coin received, Bradstreet would pour a shot of gin through a lead pipe, directly into the patrons waiting mouth. That this happened – and spread like wildfire – is not in dispute, but that it led to the name Old Tom is highly unlikely – the timing is never that great, and Bradstreet makes no mention of the term in his autobiography.