Should I drink when the weather is very hot? York Gin advises customers to stop drinking G&Ts during heatwave

Should you drink or avoid alcohol when it's very hot?
The answer is that you should be very careful about getting dehydrated. Make sure you drink plenty of water - and consider avoiding alcohol altogether if the temperatures are really high

During the very hot weather in summer 2022 we sent out the following advice.

We’re taking the unusual step for a gin company to advise you to lay off the G&Ts on Monday and Tuesday.

With temperatures in York due to hit up to 39C, we’re advising you all to concentrate on keeping as cool as possible and hydrated.

Alcohol makes you sweat more, it makes you wee more - neither helps with hydration.

So our advice is: take a couple of days off the booze - and enjoy a double on Wednesday when it’s all over and it's raining!

One of York Gin’s founding directors, Emma Godivala, said: ‘These temperatures are just crazy - and we think the best thing people can do is to concentrate on staying as cool as possible, and avoiding dehydration.

‘We’re looking after our distillery and shop staff with extra air conditioners. We won’t be distilling any gin on Monday and Tuesday as it involves heating our copper still. And we’ll keep a watching brief on whether we need to take any other measures.'

We offer tiny tasters of gin in our two shops in York. Customers will still be able to try the gins, but staff will be repeating the company’s advice. The York Gin shops also stock a non-alcoholic 'gin' by Yorkshire company Bax Botanicals.

Emma added: ‘We’re very happy for customers to keep buying our gins during the heatwave - ideally online at yorkgin.com from a darkened room with a fan on full blast and with their feet in a bucket of iced water.

‘We’re also very keen for them to raise a G&T toast when it’s all over. We think by then we'll all need a double.'

We have been posting advice to our followers on the York Gin Dogs Instagram account on how to keep dogs cool. We have several distillery dogs, including Inigo the cavapoo, pictured.