World Gin Day 2017 is fast approaching, and Australian Ambassador Caroline Childerley (AKA the Gin Queen) is calling on bars and restaurants to get involved on June 10.
Founded by Birmingham-based blogger Neil Houston in 2009, World Gin Day has been run by Emma Stokes (Gin Monkey) since 2013, spreading to 30 countries around the world and reaching over 50 million people on social media channels last year.
Childerley, World Gin Day’s Aussie Ambassador, is busy making sure that Australia has a strong showing on the day and on the World Gin Day website, which acts as a global hub for all events planned in bars and restaurants.
“With World Gin Day, we’re really just aiming to get everybody around the world excited about gin if they weren’t excited already,” Childerley told BARS&clubs.
“It just gives everybody a focus, gives the venues and bars something different to do – a bit like World Whisky Day, it’s just an international day to promote our love of gin.”
Childerley says the occasion offers bars and restaurants the opportunity to leverage off the ever-growing popularity of gin – especially within Australia.
“Gin is a huge trend globally and in Australia we’ve gone from around 12 gins three years ago to 105, so there’s a massive interest.
“The number of people going to see distilleries, who want to know more about local Australian gins is huge – so it’s a great opportunity for bars to get involved, and if you look at the stats, in terms of what people search for and how many visitors we get to the website who want to know about it, it’s obvious why bars should get involved.
“Most venues now, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, have got distilleries on their doorstep, so it’s a great opportunity for bars to collaborate with distilleries to host various events.”
Childerley also explains that a number of exciting events for the day in Australia have already been listed online: The Barber Shop in Sydney will host a ‘Mother’s Ruin’ cabaret, Biota Dining in Bowral are putting on a five-course gin lunch, and Taxi Kitchen in Melbourne will collaborate with Artemis to host a gin dinner.
“Gin Palace in Melbourne is also an incredible place to spend World Gin Day, usually kicking off at midday and going on into the wee hours with a lot of different brands getting involved with martini masterclasses, food matching, and gin and tonic garnishing classes,” Childerley adds.
The Gin Queen is also hoping that World Gin Day 2017 is even bigger than last year.
“Australia last year really lit the map up, and was probably one of the biggest hotspots outside of London and the UK – we want as many venues to put their details up as possible this year!”
Venues can profile their World Gin Day event by filling out this form on the official website. For more information, contact The Gin Queen at caroline@theginqueen.com.
Social stats from 2016 World Gin Day:
- #worldginday hashtag reached in excess of 50 million people
- #worldginday was trending on Twitter in the UK on the day (Saturday June 13, 2016)
- 35,000 tweets included the official hashtag #worldginday
- More than 100,000 timeline deliveries for tweets including #worldginday
- On average, there were 23.4 tweets a minute that included #worldginday over the course of the week, peaking on June 13
