Born in the midst of the first Coronavirus lockdown, Purist Gin is based in the West End of Glasgow. We sat down for a chat with Founder Bruce Filippi Walker to hear about its origins. 

“My previous venture Designer Spirits (supplying bespoke spirits for businesses) became impossible to manage without a thriving hospitality sector. So I developed a product to supply people's (suddenly thriving) home bars!”

With a background in spirits, and a suitable home office, Bruce set about designing every element of Purist Gin - from the brand, bottle and website, to the all important recipe. A gin, born from lockdown!

Since those early days, Purist Gin has grown its product base to three, increased its team to four and secured a bronze award at the 2020 Scottish Gin Awards in the highly competitive “London Dry Gin” category. 

This headline product - the “passion project”, as Bruce puts it - is branded as Purist Art, with each batch offering a platform for an up and coming artist to showcase their work. 

“All featured artists receive both a small cut of each bottle sale as well as a physical product to promote their work. Our current bottle showcases the enchanting florals of young Edinburgh-based painter Franny Moseley.”

It’s clear that Bruce has a great eye for marketing, and an enviable determination to make a success of Purist Gin - but let’s not forget the role his technical abilities have played in Purist’s journey to date. As an experienced spirits maker, Bruce is passionate about doing things the right way. On his production process, he notes:

“We're passionate about smooth gin. We use a single-shot distillation method, only adding water to dilute our gin after distillation. This ensures the smoothest possible finish.” 

Clearly this attention to detail is working, with all three of Purist’s gins receiving nominations at the 2021 Scottish Gin Awards. Purist Art (London Dry Gin of the year); Purist Black 57 (High-strength Gin of the year); Purist Marble (Distilled Gin of the year). 

We’re excited by the pace of Bruce and Purist Gin’s development, and can’t wait to see (and taste) what comes next.