Tim Stones is the distiller at Hickson House Distilling Co, where he makes a trio of gins under the Hickson Rd label. He began his career as a bartender, working at a couple of influential London bars in the aughts, before becoming the global brand ambassador for Beefeater gin. In this conversation he talks about what it was like to be a brand ambassador in the days of healthy expense accounts and how that’s changed, we talk about the kind of brain you need to be a distiller, the creative process involved in crafting a new gin recipe, how he got experience in the distillery side of things and how he thinks about gin.