Hendrick’s master distiller honoured by University of Hull
Lesley Gracie, the master distiller of Hendrick’s Gin, was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree by The University of Hull on 15 January.
The honoris causa recognises Gracie’s extensive career, industry-leading innovation, and inspiring ability to blend science and creativity.
She received her honorary degree on 15 January at Connexin Live Hull during the Faculty of Science and Engineering graduation ceremony.
During her acceptance speech, she paid tribute to her home city of Hull, noting that studying chemistry had entirely shaped her career path and emphasising the importance of blending science and creativity.
Addressing the graduating class, Gracie 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.”
Gracie was born and raised in Hull and studied chemistry part-time at Hull Technical College while working for a local pharmaceutical company.
With a lifelong fascination with plants, one of her early roles involved experimenting with botanical flavours to mask the taste of medicines.
In 1999, Gracie was approached by Charlie Gordon, the great-grandson of William Grant, while working in the lab at William Grant & Sons’ Girvan Distillery.
Gordon asked her to create a bold new gin unlike anything that had come before. This collaboration led to the creation of Hendrick’s Gin.
Over the past two decades, Gracie has been responsible for numerous pioneering releases and has accumulated a diverse collection of botanicals, distillates, and experimental liquids in her lab at the Hendrick’s Gin Palace.
Gracie has a long history of pushing boundaries with her experiments, with a fascination for flavours and their interactions.
Professor Kevin Pimbblet, presenting officer, introduced Gracie at the ceremony: “There are people whose work quietly reshapes the way a whole field thinks about itself. Lesley Gracie is one of them.”
As he presented Gracie to the chancellor for the award of Doctor of Letters Honoris Causa, Pimbblet concluded: “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.”
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