Gin company set up by Lancashire university grad James May reaches major milestone
A gin company set up by one of Lancashire’s most famous university graduates, James May, has reached a significant milestone.
James Gin, a premium spirits brand created by Top Gear and Grand Tour presenter James May, has hit the one million followers milestone across Instagram, Tik Tok and Youtube.
It’s very own gin-focussed Youtube channel - Planet Gin - has 442k followers as of February 2025, whilst James Gin’s Instagram page sitting at the 300k mark and Tik Tok at 266K.
What is James Gin?
62-year-old James, who studied music at Lancaster University and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university in 2010, launched James Gin back in 2021.
It has grown exponentially since, now being available in 41 countires across the world.
The full range, which includes Asian Parsnip, London Drizzle, California Dreamgin’ and a Navy Strength gin - is now scaling at a particularly rapid rate in the UK and the US, with new CEO Vishal Patel heading up commercial growth.
This month’s social media milestone comes as the brand reports sales of over £1m in 2024.
What sort of things do they post?
TV presenter James - who created the gin range in a shed in Wiltshire with collaborator Hugh Anderson of Downtown Distillery- is the star of the show when it comes to creating pieces to camera alongside his trusty sidekick and Editor Lucy Brown.
Their combination of gin content combined with lifestyle, travel and automotive media has proven to be a winning formula.
Recent social content includes a video from James to Sir Tim Martin asking him to stock the gin at Wetherspoons, and James making a terrible mushroom sandwich.
The ‘most-watched’ content is James May broke the Cybertruck which gained 8.1million views thus far on Youtube.
What has been about the achievement?
Global CEO at James Gin, Vishal Patel, who was the former Global Whisky Director at Distill Ventures, said: “I have not seen anything like this in my time working with start-up drinks brands - the levels of engagement from fans the world over is highly encouraging and sets a new standard for community building online for spirits brands.
“The US is a particular focus for us.
“Growth in super-premium gin is driven by the 22-34 audience.
”Our best-in-class social content - with James May’s voice to amplify it - puts us in pole position to acquire these younger consumers and elevate James Gin to be the super-premium gin to go for.”