Region & History

In Quiapo, a district in the heart of Manila, a story began in 1834 that still reaches every sari-sari store in the Philippines today. Antonio Ayala and Domingo Roxas founded the Distileria Licorea de Ayala there, a small distillery under the name Ayala y Cia. They distilled a juniper-forward spirit for Spanish colonial society and the wealthy Manileños, bottled in large glass demijohns known locally as Damajuana.

The chemist Anacleto del Rosario later refined the recipe to the point where the rough colonial drink became a cleaner, milder spirit. The drink soon became known simply as Ginebra, the Spanish word for gin, and turned into a status symbol for the Peninsulares and Insulares, the upper classes born in Spain and in the Philippines respectively.

In 1902, Carlos Palanca Sr. founded La Tondeña Incorporada, named after Manila's Tondo district. In 1924, his company took over the old Distileria de Ayala and became the country's largest distiller. Two rivals became one conglomerate, and a colonial drink became a people's drink.

In 1987 the company was operating as La Tondeña Distillers, and in 2003 San Miguel Corporation acquired it outright, renaming the business Ginebra San Miguel. The name stayed true to what it had always been: the Ginebra of ordinary people, sold in the round bottle everyone simply calls Gin Bilog.

Today, Ginebra San Miguel is the best-selling gin in the world by cases sold, far ahead of any European brand. Alongside it, a small craft scene has been growing in recent years: Full Circle Craft Distillers, based in Calamba City south of Manila since 2018, distills ARC Archipelago Botanical Gin using ingredients from across the whole archipelago. Two worlds, one city.