Engineering Tomorrow

Yes, the story title is a poorly disguised pun and yes, Charmaine Thio, the Southeast Asia brand ambassador of Hendrick’s Gin definitely knows a thing or two about gin.

- Bryan Goh

What happens when Thio, F.Scott Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker gather in a bar booth? Besides the exchange of literary notes (Thio has a degree in English Literature), they are — for a lack of better phrasing — enamoured with gin: the “wild-west spirit that has less rules and restrictions governing it which means there’s plenty of room for flavour exploration and innovation.”

Before Thio talks about what makes Hendrick’s Gin that yummy, she recounts her first memory of it and interestingly, like a childhood habit that we carry into adulthood, it started with her mother. “Mum was so happy quaffing gin and tonics, and even though I had no clue what it was, I knew it had to be delicious. Naturally, the first drink I ever ordered in a nightclub was the cocktail where I panicked and said the first and only drink I could think of.”

This sense of bravado (who has not panicked at a bar in a bid to look savvy?) in turn, has lifted her to where she is today — a true connoisseur of gin and in fact, the go-to girl with the encyclopaedic know-how of the spirit.