It’s a tipple enjoyed by millions and now the future of gin is safe, according to UK horticultural experts.

While gin sales have enjoyed a recent boom, key ingredient juniper, for which Cumbria is a key home, has been threatened by disease.

A deadly fungus-like organism, Phytophthora austrocedri, has been attacking the plants, particularly in Scotland, one of the main areas for juniper.

But now, the UK National Tree Seed Project has announced it has collected and protected seeds of juniper plants from across the country.

The seeds will be stored in the Millennium Seed Bank in Wakehurst, Sussex.

Cumbria Wildlife Trust runs its Uplands for Juniper project which aims to assure the future of the species.

A spokeswoman said: “We are fortunate to have hundreds of colonies of this species in Cumbria. Unfortunately many of these stands are not regenerating though and unless action is taken some colonies could disappear.

“Our Uplands for Juniper project aims to assure the future of juniper in the county through targeted survey and restoration work. It will provide an up- to-date snapshot of the health of Cumbrian juniper and will aim to restore those stands most in need of intervention.”

And the news has been welcomed by those who make gin at The Lakes Distillery at Setmurthy, near Bassenthwaite.

Paul Currie, founder and managing director, said: “We are delighted to hear that further efforts are being to made to safeguard juniper in the UK.

“We work closely with our partner Cumbria Wildlife Trust in their programme to preserve juniper in Cumbria, which is one of the main regions in the UK where juniper grows.

“This of course also helps to safeguard our juniper supply for our award- winning Lakes Gin.”

The national project is run by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and funded by the People’s Postcode Lottery.

Project officer Simon Kallow called it “a type of insurance policy”, and said the aim was to make the seed bank active and useful, so that people could use it for research and conservation.

Since 2013, the project has “banked” 5.8 million seeds from 6,500 species and it will continue cataloguing until 2018.

Juniper is the first species to be fully collected.

Mr Kallow said: “We prioritise this group because it is the most threatened and also has the largest distribution, some rare, some common.

“It was completed first, largely because our partners at the Forestry Commission worked hard to collect it from many populations.”

The juniper seeds will be kept in jars in giant freezers at -20C.

Mr Kallow added: “Seeds can be kept alive for hundreds of years in the right conditions.”

UK gin sales are predicted to outstrip Scotch whisky sales by 2020, according to latest figures. And a spirit cannot be classed as gin unless it is predominantly flavoured with juniper.