Beefeater master distiller Desmond Payne MBE retires
After nearly 60 years in the spirits industry, Beefeater master distiller emeritus Desmond Payne MBE has retired, The Spirits Business can exclusively reveal. He spoke to us about his storied career, surprising moments of development in the gin category, his outlook for the sector, and his plans for retirement.
On the cusp of his 78th birthday on 29 January, Desmond Payne MBE is exiting his role as master distiller emeritus of Beefeater Gin, and retiring with a career legacy that spans almost six decades.
“Frankly, I’ve squeezed every last week out of my career and enjoyed pretty much every second of it,” Payne tells The Spirits Business, “so, I think we’ve got Beefeater in a really good place. It’s time to move on and let other people put their own slant and experience on it – and give me time to do things myself, a bit more travel.”
Though, he’s quick to add: “I shall still be a fan of gin for life. I think it’s the wonderful properties of juniper that have kept me going so far.”
Payne retires with a 58-year-long career in gin, having begun in 1967 at Plymouth Gin, then owned by Seager Evans & Co. After 25 years, he made the move to Beefeater – and didn’t look back for 30 years.
“I just love what I’m doing,” he says about his loyalty to the Pernod Ricard-owned gin brand. “Beefeater is a great brand. It’s got huge provenance, it’s got huge history, but it’s also an incredibly innovative brand. We’ve been doing new and exciting things virtually all the time I’ve been with them, and the whole gin revolution that’s been happening has been a great encourager of that.”
He recalls the move from Plymouth to Beefeater as one of his significant career milestones. In his humble demeanour, though, he neglects to highlight some standout career moments that exemplify his accomplishments. In 2016, he was presented with the IWSC’s Lifetime Achievement Award, having been awarded The Gin Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. The late Queen Elizabeth II also bestowed him with an MBE in 2018 for his services to the UK gin industry.
While positive career moments have been plentiful, thankfully, more challenging times have been infrequent for Payne. He remembers when Beefeater was under the ownership of Allied Domecq before being bought by Pernod Ricard in 2005, and discussions around moving the distillery away from its central London location.
“Nobody else at the time was making gin in London, although London gin was very much a category, and I kind of fought long and hard to stay where we were because that was important,” Payne says. “And they said, ‘Well, if it’s important, stay in London and look for somewhere else’. I eventually came back to them and said, ‘I’ve found somewhere. And even better, there’s a distillery on the site’. In other words, stay where we are and move on the bits that we weren’t using and consolidate on that site.
“And we’re firmly entrenched in our home in Kennington [London] now, and I’m sure there are no plans to change that.”
Payne was delighted the brand could remain close to its London roots, and highlights the brand’s close proximity and affinity to the Tower of London – it is named after the ceremonial guards of the Tower of London, aka ‘beefeaters’.
Beefeater centre of expertise ‘incredibly valuable’
With the visitor centre arm of the distillery due to evolve into a ‘centre of expertise’ in January 2026, Payne sees how this could be incredibly valuable to spirits professionals and gin enthusiasts alike.
He says: “Training is hugely important. It’s not just training our distillers and the people who work and are marketers, and the people who work in the business, but it’s also training bartenders. It’s not as much training people as it is enabling people to understand why things happen, and how things happen.
“I spent a lot of time over the last 15 years or so running an organisation called ‘Gin College’, where I go around the world and I get 50 bartenders together for a day – which is quite a commitment for them, especially when we start before 11 in the morning,” he quips with a smile, “and really take them through what gin is, and let them make their own.
“And training is hugely important – and for the consumer, though I prefer the term ‘drinker’. More and more people want to understand what they’re eating, what they’re drinking, what’s in it, how is it made – there’s curiosity. Giving that message out to people who look after our product overseas, and to bartenders and interested parties is hugely important and, I hope, of value and interest going forwards.”
This curiosity follows an impressive run of growth for gin over the last decade. And even Payne was surprised by its surge in popularity. He credits the “fantastic calibre of a new generation of bartenders” for much of this success.
“They love working with gin because they can put their own slant on gin, it’s so adaptable,” he believes.
“The interface between us as gin producers and the consumer, or the drinker, is the bartender.
“We saw hundreds of gins appearing and huge excitement; I call it the ‘gin-volution’. We also saw some interesting products emerge, some are still around but some didn’t survive.”
‘Revolution is over’
He continues: “The revolution is over now. We’re settling down and we’re sort of re-establishing ourselves to fit a new generation of drinkers. But that was a huge surprise the way it suddenly surged. And you know, you can’t be growing by 30/40/50% a year forever. But gin is definitely here to stay.”
Surprisingly, this advent of new gin producers put little pressure on Payne’s shoulders. He embraced the growth and has enjoyed flexing his innovation and ability to play with flavours, styles, and ABVs over the years. Recent releases from the brand have included a grapefruit-flavoured gin in March this year, and the introduction of alcohol-free Beefeater 0.0, originally launched in Spain at the start of 2024 before it arrived in the UK this summer.
“Gin has this ability to move, at times, very quickly. It’s harder for other spirits to do that because you’re waiting for things to mature. With gin, we had a huge opportunity to express this traditional, great London gin brand in more contemporary ways,” Payne explains.
Does flavoured gin need regulating?
He remains excited to see the development of flavoured gins, and the growth of non-alcoholic alternatives. This is a wide avenue to welcome a new generation of gin drinkers into the category. Though as much as Payne is passionate about promoting creativity and innovation within the category, he is a staunch defender of gin – and quality.
He applauds the work of The Gin Guild, for which he has just completed his two-year tender as grand rectifier, for its work in protecting the category.
“We have to be careful with definition,” Payne says. “Definitions can tie down creativity and entrepreneurial ideas. But, does the relatively new category of flavoured gins – which is a strange expression because all gin is flavoured – need a definition? At the moment it’s kind of floating around.
“I’m quite clear in my own mind what the definition should be but I think we need to have it properly defined so that people know where the boundaries are. We need to give people a certain amount of leeway to freelance, but there still need to be parameters that define ‘this is gin. Beyond this point, it’s not gin; it’s something else’. It may be very enjoyable, but think of another name for it.”
As Payne embarks on a well-earned retirement, he plans to fill his time with travel, another passion of his and one he has been fortunate to have indulged during his illustrious career. He highlights New Zealand and South Africa as places he has fond memories of and would love to revisit.
But top of his travel bucket list would be a return trip to Peru. “It’s one of the most exciting, interesting places I’ve ever visited. I’d go back again, though I don’t have to climb Machu Picchu again (I didn’t climb it),” he jests.
We discuss people who’ve shaped who Payne is as a distiller and leader in gin. He speaks fondly of Philip Milner, a mentor and respected figure at Plymouth Gin, and Nick Blackmore, former brand director for Beefeater in Pernod Ricard.
There will undoubtedly be countless people Payne will have inspired along the way, too, not least Adam Cocker, who took on the role of head distiller at Beefeater when Payne stepped into the master distiller emeritus role three years ago. Under Cocker and the wider Beefeater and Pernod Ricard team’s stewardship, Payne is confident the brand is in safe, talented hands.
“I’m really, really relaxed and confident that Beefeater will keep going. It’s not the world’s most awarded gin for nothing,” he notes. “People love the product, and the love for the product just goes through every level. There’s something about the brand that puts it in a very strong place. I’m absolutely confident that Adam and the rest of the team will keep is on its great journey to thrive and flourish.”
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