But rather than just sticking his face on a bottle of gin made by someone else, he took the different, more honest path of crafting his very own uniquely different gin flavours.
His range of savoury gins tested by the enthusiastic customers at the pub he co-owns in Wiltshire, has garnered numerous awards, is now available in 41 countries, constantly sells out and has even been deemed good enough to go in the fish batter at the pub.
Mostly famed for presenting Top Gear and The Grand Tour, James, with West Countryman Gus Colquhoun and Hugh Anderson of Downtown Distillery, has created a range of truly remarkable and utterly original gins using combinations of botanicals that no-one has ever even considered before, such as -parsnip, mustard and beetroot.
Each of his gins are based on ideas from James' love of cooking and experience of global travelling. His first flavour, Asian Parsnip combines British parsnips with a hint of exotic spices.
His latest, London Drizzle, aims to recreate the uniquely British feeling of rain on a damp London summer's day. All things the British public, plus, as it turns out, a fairly large wodge of American Gin Drinkers, are keen to try.
A little bit of history. In September 2020 James became co-owner of The Royal Oak Swallocliffe in Wiltshire.
He thought it might be a great idea to create a gin for his customers. James has travelled extensively during his TV career and as a consequence, experienced a vast range of foods and flavour combinations in some fairly interesting locations.
His thinking was that as he enjoyed experimenting with cooking, so why not experiment with gin? Local man Hugh's nano-distillery is about half an hour from James' pub, and many hours were spent experimenting with different flavours.
Said James: “Originally, I'd intended to make enough to sell in the pub. But Hugh suggested a run of 1,000 litres, about 1420 bottles. That's quite a lot for a village pub, so we decided to put the gin for sale online as a signed, numbered limited edition.
"Amazingly, it sold out within days, rather than the few years I'd anticipated. Our experiment has since turned into a gin-fuelled monster. Like most things involving gin, it got a bit out of hand.”
Flavours available include: Asian Parsnip, American Mustard and London Drizzle.
To learn more and to buy visit www.jamesgin.com.