What's your background before becoming distillers? We are Herefordshire fruit farmers - we grow strawberries, raspberries, cherries, blueberries and eating and cider apples. What made you decide to start your own distillery and how has the team grown? We love gin and there's a fantastic gin and coffee shop in Ludlow - one day we we're enjoying a Saturday morning coffee when we thought we should be producing a gin with all our fruit! How has the team grown since you launched in 2018? Firstly, it's all of us involved now, not just Charlie and Dickie. We are two farming families running Penrhos Spirits together - The Turners, Charlie and I, and the Williams, Dickie and Sally and their daughter Harriet. We also have two local members of staff helping to create our gins and a further two based in London, but the core remains the family. We are still Herefordshire fruit farmers but whereas we once considered ourselves Fruit Farmers who distill, we now think of ourselves as Distillers who farm! Can you tell us more about the distillery? The distillery is in a beautiful old barn where Dickie's grandmother used to raise calves, her name was Constance so we've called our copper still Connie. We put our own blueberries, cherry blossom and honey in every distillation. What has been the biggest challenge so far? The biggest challenge was getting our bottles the right shade! Choosing colours from a pantone does not transfer well to the bottles!! It took many attempts until we were happy. What have been the biggest achievements so far? The biggest success has been the launch of our new bottle made from 100% recycled aluminium. The fact that a small brand from Herefordshire has come up with an idea that is challenging the way we look at delivering gin is something that I am very proud of. We've questioned whether there is a more sustainable solution than glass. We're also very proud of getting listed in 411 Sainsbury's stores nationwide, and of course our Awards too, including our Wonky Raspberry Gin being named as 'Product of the Year 2023' in The Gin Guide Awards, winning the IWSC Design Award, and being nominated for The Grocer's New Product & Packaging Award. What's your favourite way to drink your gin?
A Gin & Tonic, outside in the sunshine, and with a garnish of frozen blueberries. A good tip, if you have leftover blueberries or if you buy a disappointing punnet, don't throw them away - freeze them and then use them to garnish your G&Ts. Desert Island Gins - which 3 gins would you take with you and why? We really don't drink many other Gins! However, we think a bottle of Isle of Harris gin would be good to send a message in a bottle from a desert island! It's such a beautiful bottle someone would definitely want to pick it up! We recently tried Four Pillars Gin and thought that was very good. Salcombe Gin, enjoyed overlooking the sea, is pretty good too! What's next for Penrhos Spirits - any exciting plans? We're planning to bring out different bottle sizes in recycled aluminium, especially the 5cl minis for the airlines. We are just getting some duty free listings too. You Might Also Like...
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