THE GIN PASSPORT ATLAS - DISTILLERY STORY- PINNED ON THE MAP - ASIA
N.I.P. Distilling, Hong Kong
I finally got to visit N.I.P Distillery in Quarry Bay in May 2026, where I had the pleasure of meeting both founders, Nic Law and Jeremy Li. It had been quite an eventful day, getting thoroughly drenched during our sightseeing expeditions, so it was rather wonderful to find somewhere dry for a couple of hours — especially when there was plenty of Dry Gin to sample!
They were incredibly welcoming and hosted us in their bar and reception area, which is tucked into the distillery itself. Their still is behind glass, partly because of Hong Kong's licensing requirements, but it also means you get a rather lovely view of the shiny bit where all the magic happens.
N.I.P's story began in 2017, when childhood friends Nic and Jeremy were both working corporate jobs and found themselves talking over drinks about what they really wanted to do. The idea of opening a bar soon turned into something rather more ambitious: creating their own gin.
At the time, Hong Kong didn't have a craft spirits distillery, so they were effectively starting from scratch. They spent time learning their trade in Scotland and Australia, including a stint at Strathearn Distillery and time learning from Cameron Mackenzie at Four Pillars.
Getting a distillery licensed in Hong Kong was, unsurprisingly, not a quick process. They had to navigate multiple government departments and spent around two years getting everything in place before N.I.P officially launched in December 2019. Rather than escape the expensive city and set up somewhere cheaper, they deliberately chose Quarry Bay, surrounded by offices and businesses, because they wanted people to be able to visit and experience what they were making. A brave decision as according to a recent interview with Jeremy, their rent is around £5k a month, before alcohol duty, equipment and other costs involved.
The name N.I.P stands for Not Important Persons and is really at the heart of their philosophy. Nic and Jeremy didn't come from the spirits industry, didn't have a big distillery behind them and weren't particularly important people in the traditional sense. Their message is that with a bit of grit, belief and persistence, anyone can take that leap and create something remarkable.
Their inspiration has always been Hong Kong itself. They wanted to create a gin that genuinely tasted of the city rather than simply putting a Hong Kong label on a conventional gin.
Tea became one of their signature ingredients, alongside things such as aged tangerine peel, osmanthus, goji berries and locally grown citrus.
Their current range continues to explore familiar Hong Kong flavours, including the rather brilliant Yuen Yang gin, inspired by the city's beloved coffee-and-tea combination. I'll go into more about this below.
I particularly like the personal connection behind their use of tea. Nic and Jeremy grew up drinking different teas in their respective families, so tea became a way of bringing a little of their own family histories into the bottles. It also explains why they haven't simply settled on one “Hong Kong tea” and stopped experimenting. Their Catnip series has explored different teas and flavour combinations, including Phoenix Dancong, Da Hong Pao and, most recently, jasmine tea paired with coffee.
Tea and coffee might seem like an unlikely combination, but in Hong Kong they come together in Yuen Yeung, a much-loved cha chaan teng drink combining strong Hong Kong-style milk tea with coffee.
It is such a quintessentially Hong Kong pairing that N.I.P have created a gin inspired by it. I rather love the idea of taking something so familiar and giving it a ginny twist - and yes, it does work!
The heart of the distillery is April, their custom-made German copper still, built by Christian Carl. The name has a lovely story too: April represents the arrival of spring and was chosen because it was in April that the founders made the decision to commit to building the distillery.
The still took many months to design and manufacture and, because of construction delays, Nic and Jeremy ended up assembling it themselves with help from the German manufacturer over a video call.
"From two friends with a love of gin to Hong Kong distilling pioneers — N.I.P is proof that a good idea can survive even the most formidable amount of red tape."
Since those early days, N.I.P has expanded well beyond its original range of gin, with limited editions, collaborations and increasingly experimental expressions, including its explorations of Chinese tea and other local flavours. It has also become involved in something rather different through ecoSPIRITS, acting as a local co-packer for the closed-loop system. Spirits arrive at the distillery in bulk and are transferred into reusable 4.5-litre glass containers, which are then delivered to bars and returned for cleaning and refilling. It is a clever way of reducing the need for single-use glass bottles and another example of N.I.P thinking beyond the bottle.
They are connected with Pernod Ricard through this ecoSPIRITS project. It's quite a journey from two friends deciding they wanted to make a Hong Kong gin, to becoming part of a much bigger rethink of how spirits are delivered to the city's bars. I told them I suspected bigger things coming for them, so watch this space!
Two friends started with an idea over a drink in 2017.
Seven years of persistence later, they had created a distillery, a growing collection of award-winning gins and a rather brilliant way of putting Hong Kong into a bottle.
Not Important Persons? I think they've become rather important after all.
"Show me a bottle and
I'll tell you a story"
