A bathing ritual you can drink

London, 2025: For HIX, Bompas & Parr introduced the world’s first Gin Shower in collaboration with Hansgrohe and AXOR, uniting precision water engineering with ritualised drinking. Conceived as part of a wider exploration into modern bathing, the installation transformed the familiar mechanics of the shower into a performative tasting experience that collapsed bathing and drinking into a single, unexpected gesture.

The project took inspiration from the Puss & Mew, the ingenious 18th-century gin dispenser attributed to Dudley Bradstreet, which quietly subverted London’s licensing laws by vending gin through a coin-operated mechanism concealed behind a cat’s mouth. In this contemporary retelling, covert exchange was replaced with transparency, craft and control. The hidden transaction became an open ritual, choreographed through immaculate modern fittings and sculptural streams of liquid.

At the centre of the experience was a working shower installation, activated as a live demonstration before guests were guided through a structured sensory tasting. Drawing on the language of the bathroom, Bompas & Parr developed a series of bespoke gin tinctures inspired by everyday bathing products, including body scrub, aftershave, shampoo, conditioner and toothpaste. Each blend translated cosmetic associations into flavour, combining botanicals such as bay leaf, kaffir lime, kombu, chamomile, mint and cardamom to create an olfactory and gustatory journey rooted in the rituals of personal care.

Guests were invited to smell, discuss and select their preferred tincture before it was added to a gin and tonic, served using a ladle embedded with a historic coin in reference to early vending machines. The act of choosing and serving became part of the performance, reinforcing the project’s interest in how inherited customs can be reframed through contemporary design.

The Gin Shower invited reflection on how domestic rituals might inform the interiors and social spaces of the future. By blending water, alcohol, history and engineering, the installation explored how familiar habits can be reimagined as moments of playful ingenuity, communal pleasure and sensory delight.