Source: http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2015/the-new...

He produced the first batch of 2,500 bottles of his London dry gin in May 2009, giving out 100 samples to bars he hoped might stock it. One of them ended up in the hands of Alessandro Palazzi, manager at Dukes Bar in London’s West End, and a legend among the city’s cocktail lovers. Palazzi tried it on some regulars, who liked it, and asked for six more bottles. From that day forth, Hart was, in his own unassuming kind of way, made. Palazzi’s martini recipe is printed on the back of the bottle.

“If I wanted to make 300 bottles a day I would probably have to lose the sofa. But that’s 100,000 a year; there’s plenty of capacity. This year we will probably sell 30,000 bottles. Last year we sold 24,000; the year before 18,000,” he said. He smiled, realizing he was describing a neat progression. “The year before that it was probably 12,000.”