What did you do before establishing East Coast Distillery? It began where all good ideas do – over a cup of tea and biscuits at the end of a hard day in the office. Whilst we quite like our day jobs, we started thinking what else we could do. It had to be something we would all be excited about. An opportunity to be creative, to put an often-overlooked part of Essex on the map and offer us a chance to meet new people. We run the Distillery around full time jobs in the public sector and so our time is extremely limited. People joke that what we do is like a hobby, but our hope is still that it will grow from this point to become the day job. Ben and Simon use Fridays for all of their production, Distilling, bottling, labelling and maintenance with Saturdays an import day for the team to open the distillery up to visitors for tours and tastings, as well as selling at events around the County of Essex and beyond.
What's the inspiration behind your gin? The inspiration for what we do comes from a deep desire to be authentic, to make a range of Dry Gins, Flavoured Gins and Gin or Vodka Liqueurs that are rooted in a place, connected by the botanicals that we locally source or forage and creating something that is a true celebration of North Essex. We started planning the Distillery in 2018 and it is are located in Landermere on the beautiful Walton Backwaters, the tidal estuarine saltmarsh between Harwich and Walton, which is different every time you visit. Calm and tranquil, idyllic for kayaking or swimming one moment, then wild and foreboding the next as the grey sky blurs with the grey waters. Regardless of the weather the area is always packed with wading birds and an abundance of plant and animal life. It’s here that we’re fortunate to have been able to set up East Coast Distillery, our home, just a ten-minute walk up the lane to the Quay. We are a coastal brand so it is important to us to do what we can to reduce the amount of plastic that we generate from our processes. Wherever possible we have elimated single use plastics replacing them with natural materials like wood and cork for our stoppers and natural plant materials for our tamper evident sealing. In addition, we try to keep our environmental impact as low as a small business is able to be, by recycling our cooling water for the still, producing our own distilled water from tap water and having a refill station that allows people to bring back their empty bottles of Tide’s Fortune Essex Dry Gin or Tide’s Fortune Elder Pear Dry Gin to refill. It saves them over £5 on a bottle, saves us the cost of a new bottle and saves the planet, at least a little.
Can you tell us more about the distillery? We’re located on the site of a former dairy farm and the building we use was once the milking parlour. It is a perfect size for our distillery, allowing us the split the space into a dedicated production area as well as a shop and full bar where visitors can call in for a drink or a coffee in our licensed bar area. We are a little off the beaten track but there is plenty of parking outside the Distillery and always a warm welcome. What can visitors expect and experience? We love what we do, and we are always happy to talk to people and show them round. We have a dedicated shop that sells wine, chocolate, candles, soap, beer, honey and coffee amongst other things - all sourced from across Essex for a real showcase of local products that sits so well alongside our gins and gin liqueurs, many of which we have teamed up with local producers to create. Whether people are looking for something to do for a special occasion, or just something different to do with friends, we run regular gin tours with tastings every Saturday at 12pm and 2pm. Each one lasts about an hour and is a nice opportunity to find out more about the distillery, the processes involved and to try before you buy. In addition, we are able to run bespoke events from the distillery and are currently promoting our monthly Gin Classes which you can attend with up to three other people and have a Gin and Tonic whilst you learn about botanicals and distilling before making your own 70Cl bottle of gin to take home.
What have been the biggest challenges and achievements so far? Time continues to be our main challenge as a team. Balancing work commitments, family life and a business, is a real juggling act, particularly when the number of markets and shows ramps up over the summer and towards Christmas. We do a pretty good job of managing our time and have fallen into roles that suit us to get things done and to divide and conquer. What we don’t have is enough time to experiment, to develop new ideas and be creative. When we do it is enjoyable. Last year (2023) we launched a fantastic Coffee Vodka Liqueur using a locally roasted coffee in Cold Brew form. It has been so successful as the base for an Espresso Martin, we have gone on to make subsequent batches. In the current climate our biggest achievement is to still be running. We get a great deal of local support, but the industry continues to grow with new products and new distilleries opening all the time. We are very aware that people only have so much money to spend and have really set our stall out to create a tour and tasting experience that values the interest and time visitors give us. By seeing the distillery, understanding what we do what we do and of course having some samples, our visitors really buy into and appreciate our ethos.
How would you describe your gins in 3 words?
Authentic, delicious, enjoyable. What's your favourite way to drink your gin? We love to drink Tide’s Fortune Gin neat. Have it simply served over a little ice with a sliver of lemon peel. The ice elevates the piquancy of the Sea Buckthorn allowing that citrus hit to linger a little longer before leaving a warming smokiness on the palate. If you’re a G&T lover start with a dash of good quality tonic and build your way up until you reach that perfect point. Our Elder Pear Dry Gin is bursting with fruity sweetness and comes alive with a couple of cubes of ice, a premium tonic and a slice of fresh pear when they're in season. Out of season, garnish it with a small sprig of fresh rosemary. Desert Island Gins: which gins would you take with you and why? We've been particularly enjoying Hayman's Old Tom Gin - a really traditional, full flavour gin with lots of citrus and liquorice flavours. We have also been really impressed with the 1517 Miner's Gin from the Grassl Gentian Distillery in Saltzberg - made using 22 locally sourced botanicals, there is a real balance of flavour that is then elevated by storage for up to three months in clay barrels in the 250 million year old salt mines to open up a sophisticated and mild aroma and taste. What's next for you and East Coast Distillery - any exciting plans? We are really going all out on our distillery experience this year with two free tours every Saturday at 12pm and 2pm. Each lasts about an hour and are really interactive. We like to share our knowledge with visitors but are also always learning. We have some fascinating people visit us with so many weird and wonderful stories. Every tour is unique and it is the visitors on each tour that make them so enjoyable and memorable. We have recently started promoting the tours on TripAdvisor and the reviews speak for themselves. You might also like...
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