Master distiller Lesley Gracie’s chemistry studies in Hull helped shape her career path
Lesley Gracie in Lesley’s Lab at the Hendrick’s Gin Palace, Ayrshire, Scotland(Image: ruthlessimagery.com)
The University of Hull has honoured a gin-distilling legend who hails from the city. Lesley Gracie, who created the globally known Hendrick’s Gin, has been conferred a Degree of Doctor of Letters in recognition of her extensive career.
The master distiller was recognised for her “extraordinarily curious mind, commitment to innovation and industry achievements”. In Lesley’s acceptance speech, she paid homage to her home city of Hull, citing how studying chemistry entirely shaped her career path and the importance of blending science and creativity.
She accepted her “honoris causa”, or honorary degree, in full cap and gown at Hull’s Connexin Live arena as part of the graduating ceremony for the Faculty of Science and Engineering. Addressing the graduating class, Lesley said: “We all have more than just one side to us, that’s what makes us, us.
“If you’re looking to combine science with creativity, curious minds get rewarded. Always ask ‘what if’.
“My advice to all of you graduates today is to just be who you are. If you try to conform to whatever the world tells you to be, you lose the opportunity to truly connect and bond with people on a real, human level and show them who you really are. Who you are is the best bit!”
Introducing Lesley, presenting officer Professor Kevin Pimbblet said: “There are people whose work quietly reshapes the way a whole field thinks about itself. Lesley Gracie is one of them.
“Lesley’s influence is now global. The gin she created is sold around the world, yet the scale of that success rests on habits that remain local and precise.
“Long hours with glassware and notebooks. Careful recordings of how a small change in a botanical, a temperature, or a timing alters the finished liquid.
“A readiness to keep testing until something genuinely new emerges. Colleagues and peers describe her as both meticulous and quietly bold, someone who will push at the edges of a category without losing sight of structure or restraint.
“Taken together, her career shows how science, craft, and imagination can be held in one steady practice, and how a curiosity first sparked by the problem of masking the taste of medicine can, over time, remake an entire segment of the drinks industry.” Born and raised in Hull, Lesley studied chemistry at Hull Technical College part-time while working for a pharmaceutical company in the city.
Lesley has always been enchanted by flowers and plants and one of her first roles involved playing with botanical flavours to mask the taste of medicines. In 1999, while working in the lab at William Grant & Sons’ Girvan Distillery developing different innovative liquids, Lesley was approached by the great-grandson of William Grant, Charlie Gordon, to create a bold new gin unlike anything which had come before.
Hendrick’s Gin was the result, helping to spark a “ginnaisance” across the globe. Over the past two decades, Lesley has been personally responsible for countless pioneering releases for Hendrick’s and has amassed an array of botanicals, distillates and experimental liquids in her lab at the Hendrick’s Gin Palace, on the rugged Ayrshire coast in Scotland.
Her many industry accolades include the Outstanding Contribution to Scottish Gin Award 2025, bestowed by The Gin Cooperative. In another life she may have been a vet given her love for animals.
She has two dogs, Lily and Daisy – they accompanied her to the degree ceremony, along with her husband – as well as two tortoises, two rabbits, two hamsters, and countless fish. Instead, Lesley focused on chemistry – not biology – and became somewhat of an expert in how different flavours combine and work together.