Til about Dr David Clutton who’s the only person with PhD in Gin, however stupid that sounds.
How do you get a phd in a discipline where there’s no-one to grant you that phd? How was it done in the past?
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The man has a bachelors degree in chemistry. He applied knowledge and techniques from this training to some focused research for a few years on how the various different botanicals used in gin production affect the taste, how it all works on a chemical level and how we can use the tools of analytical chemistry to pinpoint the different molecular components which give specific flavours to gin.
Thus, he has a PhD in a niche aspect of organic and analytical chemistry, as applied to gin production. His PhD research [was published in the Journal of Chromatography](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0021967300911737), an analytical chemistry journal. Clutton would have completed his research in a chemistry lab and had it overseen by a supervisor who was a chemist (someone who specialised in liquid and gas chromatography by the looks of things).
Anybody with a PhD will have completed several years of independent research in a very niche subtopic of some wider, well established field.
Clutton markets himself as the only person with a PhD in gin in order to standout as a gin specialist and gin creator, which is his chosen career path. There are undoubtedly other people here and there who have done PhDs which involve gin or other spirits, or the chemistry of botanicals or flavourings in mixology or whatever, though probably not as comprehensively focused on gin as Clutton.
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