“Here we have a Canadian walking into an English bar to talk about American gin…”

Ryan Reynolds is the Canadian. The bar is downstairs at Hide (Ollie Dabbous’ glitzy new Mayfair restaurant). The gin is Aviation.

“It sounds a bit like a joke,” says Reynolds. “But stranger things have happened.”

Haven’t heard of Aviation? Us neither. But the Deadpool star has just bought the craft gin company and become its creative director, so get ready to hear a whole lot more.

Aviation was created by two former bartenders in Portland, Oregon, in 2002. It comes in a sweet-as art deco bottle, hinting to its pre-Prohibition inspiration, which also means that it’s far less pungent than some of the newer gins out there – subtlety is its key.

So when Mr. Reynolds – who takes his gin neat – tried a glass in the Hawksworth Restaurant, Vancouver, it was love at first sip. And if you do happen to be a super hero, what’s the next logical step? Nope, not just have another glass. You find the company that made it and send it global – create a worldwide phenomenon.

Reynolds hung up his red suit for a night in London this week, to explain to Esquirewhy us juniper-mad Brits ought to give this quintessentially Yankee gin a try…