Spirits in the North-East? Gin and Other Vices in the Long Eighteenth Century*

Peter Clark expressed clear doubts as to the extent to which the 'gin mania' was quite so destructive of effort as the traditional imagery indicated. There appeared to be some association between spirit retailing and artisan districts in London, and this raised a conflict between the traditional historiography and the hard evidence of likely consumers. Proximity to the North Sea and to Scotland also opened the regional market to potential penetration by invaders, first the smugglers, and then the large Scottish distilleries that came to enter the English market from the 1770s. Both 'strong waters' and 'spirits' were subjected to the first Excise, in 1654-5, for which returns disaggregated by county survive, and these suggest a rather different pattern. Evidence of the regional patterns of spirit manufacture and consumption is no better for the bulk of the eighteenth century.