What did you do before establishing The Gower Gin Company? We met at university in Bristol and married soon after; Andrew proposed in Machu Pichu, Peru! Sian was a modern languages teacher initially and Andrew worked as a project manager. After working for a few years in London, fate struck, we attended a wedding in Provence where all the guests had a gourmet hamper in their hotel room and this inspired us to set up a hamper company, Le Panier Truffé, discovering fabulous food products in France and importing it into the UK. We had some great successes (we supplied Ready Steady Cook with hampers and our food items were stocked in many high end London stores) but ultimately we were a little before our time with the gourmet food wave, and also pre-internet so we re-started our careers. Sian became a university lecturer and Andrew a Management Consultant. What inspired you to establish your distillery and launch your gins? We have always had a passion for food and wine, but I think our gin obsession began at university where we met. We began to recognise the gin revolution going on before our very eyes and then one weekend in 2016 we went on a gin blending course in London and it changed our lives. We came back to Gower and were inspired to create something special, based on the wild flavours of the Gower Peninsula where we live. We also thought it was time to set up a business again and our first gin launch was in September 2017. Following this we have developed 2 or 3 new products a year keeping some as core products and others as seasonal specials – everyone has their favourite! The products we create reflect local characters, places and flavours (often all 3) and the inspiration can come from anywhere.
What is the inspiration and story behind your branding and brand name? GWYR is the Welsh term for Gower. As a linguist and Welsh learner, Sian is passionate about supporting the Welsh language. The brand was inspired by the Breton stripes that are synonymous with the sea, coupled with embossed copper to represent the traditional Swansea Copper industry; Swansea was once called Copperopolis! Our stripes proved instantly recognisable and a real hit so we stayed with them with varying colours and related designs. Can you tell us more about your distillery and team? We have a small team of the two of us as well as Laura Gilbert our Distillery Operations Manager and our son Owain who runs our gin tastings and everyone contributes to our business. Our distillery is a real micro-distillery at the bottom of the garden at our house in Port Eynon. It is a converted bike shed and probably the smallest micro-distillery in Wales. We distil all our gins within sight of the sea and our still is called Arianwen which means ‘Silver Spirit’. We could not buy a still to fit in the space so we had a bespoke still made and a lot of the components came from on-line still suppliers; it was a real challenge for a fledgling distiller but we made it! Now hundreds of people come each year to Port Eynon to drink gin and other spirits next to our original bike-shed distillery.
Can you tell us more about your distillation process? Our focus is on creating bold, distinctive flavours We have quite a long macerating process for our botanicals to ensure we get maximum flavour extraction and most of our Gower Gin is made using soil-association certified organic spirit. The really distinctive part of our process is the use of wild foraged botanicals from the environment around us. Our Original gin contains wild foraged fennel, our Rhosili Gin contains local gorse flowers, and our most recent launch - Port Eynon Navy Strength Gin - contains five foraged botanicals that come from within 1km of our distillery: rosemary, nettle, rock samphire, sloe and blackberry. What can visitors experience if they visit the distillery for a tour/tasting? We are not open all the time but do run a lot of tasting days throughout the year which can be booked online. People can expect a very relaxed atmosphere, the stories behind all of our different spirits and lots of free tasting (with some experiments that are not available to buy). We also offer a look around the distillery which is likely to be in production mode so our guests see live distilling most of the time. We have a small range of products that are exclusive to us and there is always something new to try. Over the years we have gathered a lot of anecdotes and stories about gin history and gin making and these always raise a smile. The ratings we get for our tasting tours speak for themselves and we only do 1:1 groups so your tasting is just for you.
What are your ambitions for The Gower Gin Company in the years to come? We love working with other great companies and this is something that we really hope to continue. We partnered with a great Welsh vineyard to make vermouths; a great Welsh water company to make ready-to-drink Gin and Tonics, and a great Welsh distillery to finish and launch our own whisky brand; there are lots of new projects in the pipeline so definitely watch this space. We are also very keen to share the knowledge we have learned and so work with Cardiff University on their marketing courses to offer insight for students and support for projects and dissertations. We are just about to launch some new courses for people who want to come and learn how to distil in a practical hands-on environment and we are constantly working with new brands to create new spirits as a contract / bespoke distilling partner. What's next for you and The Gower Gin Company - any exciting plans? We constantly reflect on where we are as a company and try to stay agile by keeping an eye on developing trends. This is where a lot of new projects develop from. We are very keen to start making and distilling new categories of spirits and you can definitely expect to see some new partnerships and products appearing in our announcements this year. We have just announced the first Port Eynon Gin Festival (22 nd -24 th August) which we are really looking forward to and this will celebrate the village where we started and the wonderful Gower peninsula which has inspired us so much. We have just launched our first Zero Alcohol Spirit (which also has zero calories and zero carbs) and it has been so successful we are already working on the next one. This reflects current more health conscious trends which we have embraced and aligns to one of the fastest growing areas of the UK drinks categories. The bottom line is that we want to continue having fun, meeting new inspiring people and developing new flavours and ideas to be as creative as possible in doing this we hope to welcome as many people as possible to our little part of Wales to share our passion.
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