The Stone's ginger range has been crafted in Australia for over 50 years. The time honoured recipe remains largely unchanged since 1740.
HERITAGE
The origins of Stone’s Original Ginger Wine, the UK’s favourite ginger tipple, are well documented. The drink’s roots date back to 1740 and the foundation of a company called The Finsbury Distilling Company in the City of London.
The Finsbury Distilling Company, like many of their counterparts, needed to build a retail network to sell their wares. These included Joseph Stone, grocer of High Holborn. An extremely important customer of the distillers, his name was given to their Ginger Wine.
Made then, as it still is today from the finest quality wine grapes and pure fresh ginger, Stone’s Original Green Ginger Wine quickly became the flagship of the Finsbury Distilling Company’s British wines division.
Sales of Stone’s Original Green Ginger Wine continued to grow during the 19th century. In 1832, amid the cholera epidemic, sales were boosted by the widely held belief that ginger offered protection against the disease.
Ginger’s medicinal properties – it has also been hailed as an aid to digestion and as an effective aphrodisiac – undoubtedly contributed to the everlasting popularity (and cult like following) of Stone’s Original Green Ginger Wine.
At about this time, the Stone family’s links with the Finsbury Distilling Company were strengthened when Joseph Stone’s son John joined them as an apprentice. He quickly rose through the company to become one of the key salespeople for their British wines including his namesake, Ginger Wine.
Joseph Stone retired to Barnet where he died in 1896. He would, no doubt, be astonished to learn that over 110 years later, his name has become one of the best known in the drinks industry, not just in the UK, but all over the world.