Stockport Gin was launched in 2019 by husband and wife, Paul and Cheryl Sharrocks, who are both from Stockport. Having begun distilling in their garage at the home, in 2021 Paul and Cheryl opened their new distillery and shop in the centre of Stockport to offer gin tastings and tours, and now also a Gin School, with many milestones, achievements, and challenges along the way! Read on as Paul and Cheryl take us through the timeline of their journey and share more about their experiences and the growth of Stockport Gin. The Stockport Gin Timeline
How has the distillery and team changed since you launched? When we first launched, we were distilling in the garage at home whilst still both working full-time jobs. That quickly changed though as we got very busy very quickly, so Cheryl took the step to work full-time for Stockport Gin whilst Paul stayed full-time in Architecture and worked evenings and weekends for Stockport Gin. Steph was brought on board to help Cheryl with a lot of the manual work (bottling, labelling etc) and to this day remains an integral part of the Stockport Gin team. We couldn’t do what we do without her! As the business grew, along with our passion for what we do, Paul left the world of Architecture as the move was made from the garage to our new town centre distillery in 2021. We now do everything from the distillery. We distil all our own gins, bottle them, label them. We have a shop where people can come and try our gins and buy our gins. We host tours of the distillery which are incredibly popular as well as a wide range of other events, and now our very own Gin School! Other than Paul, Cheryl and Steph, we have a small team of helpers who do an amazing job for us when we need them for events. Catherine, Keeley, Jamie, Jen, Jeanette, Steph, Siobhan, and Ellie! Knowing what you know now, what advice would you have given yourself when you began? Be prepared to work a lot harder than you ever imagined, especially at the start when we were both also working full time! Oh, and naked flames and alcohol are not a good combination...! Is there a product or initiative that you are most proud of since you launched?
We set out from the start to make a gin we loved in the hope others did too, so our Original Edition Gin remains a testament to that. We’re obviously delighted with many other things though. Our Twist of Lime is a firm favourite and the fact it was awarded 'Best Gin in Britain 2022' in The Gin Guide Awards remains our biggest achievement and one we still tell everyone about today! Our Bergara Gin raised over £4,000 for the Danny Bergara Statue Fund and as we are both big Stockport County fans we were delighted to be able to help with that project. What has been the highlight of the past 5 years or your favourite story? We keep going on about it, but winning 'Best Gin in Britain' was a huge achievement for us! But really, just the fact that for the past 5 years, we’ve been able to do something that we absolutely love and make gin we love in the hope others do too! What’s next for Stockport Gin in the near future? We’ve just launched our own Gin School, so we’re spending a lot of time promoting that and getting it off the ground. We’re really excited about that as our journey into the world of distilling started one night at a local Gin School, so our hope is that we inspire someone else to go on a crazy journey like we have! We’ve got some new products planned too for later this year that we are looking forward to getting to work on! What are the big dreams and plans for the next 5 years? To keep doing what we do hopefully! Like we said, we love what we do here and we’ll continue to do it for as long as we can. We’ve got lots of ideas for the future – new events, new products, new markets. Here’s to the next 5 years!! You Might Also Like...
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