Why has gin got so much weaker?

By THIS IS MONEY
Updated:

 

I came across an advertisement for Gordon's gin in an old magazine and I noticed the bottle was marked 70% proof. The Gordon's I buy from my local supermarket is less than 40%. When did spirits get so much weaker and why? S.G., Norwich

Gordon's Gin

Simon Moon from This is Money replies: When I put your question to the people at Diageo, which owns the Gordon's brand along with many other famous names, they found it hard to swallow.

Apart from the knock-out effect of drinking something so strong, they said it would not taste very pleasant.

After a few days of head scratching, they came up with an explanation that shows our parents and grandparents were not a bunch of old soaks.

It's just that the way the strength of alcoholic drinks is described has changed over the years. The term 'proof' has been replaced by ABV (alcohol by volume), but the actual strength has not.

Clare Fleerackers, UK head of brand PR at Diageo, explained: 'Proof and alcohol by volume (ABV) are different ways of expressing the same thing - the strength.

Alcoholic proof is a measure of how much ethanol there is in a drink. It is about double the percentage of alcohol by volume.

'Before 1979 the Gordon's gin bottle said 70% proof on the label and after that the strength was expressed in terms of ABV (40% ABV at that time).

'Then in 1992, the ABV changed to 37.5% which brought Gordon's gin into line with other white spirits such as white rum and vodka.

The cost savings achieved from this change were invested back into the brand and Gordon's remains the best-selling gin brand in the UK today.

'Consumer research shows brand perceptions and purchase intent are unaffected by a reduction in ABV as long as the taste of the product remains the same and at the time the Master Distiller worked hard to ensure this was the case.'

Simon Moon from This is Money adds: The strength of gin may not have changed much over the years, but the price certainly has. The advertisement you sent me was from a 1952 copy of Vogue and the price of a bottle of gin was 33shillings and ninepence. According to This is Money's historic inflation calculator that is equivalent to £39 today. A standard supermarket bottle of gin now costs less than half as much.

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