What did you do before launching Three Bees Gin? Before venturing into the world of spirits, we had only ever produced honey and associated bee products like candles etc. We currently produce thousands of pots of honey every year in addition to the spirits, which is steadily building up. What made you decide to create your gin, and what's the inspiration behind it? Honey Spirits were a natural progression for us due to the vast quantities of honey that we produce and our love of honey and innovation. Plus, being friends with a well-known and respected industry expert who has his own rather impressive distillery, this also got us interested in the drinks industry and allowed us to produce products to complement our honey. We felt like there was a lack of honey flavoured spirits that contained a good amount of honey that you could taste. What is the meaning and story behind your brand name? As passionate bee farmers looking after in excess of three million of our own bees, you could say we really care about bees, and they happen to be key to our business! The name “THREE BEES” came about very simply, when we started keeping bees, we set out with three bee hives. In each of those hives there are three different types of honey bee; the Queen bee, the female worker bees that make up the majority of the colony, and the male drones whose purpose is to mate with the Queen. Can you tell us more about the distillation process for Three Bees Gin? We work very closely with a local distillery that is run by an industry expert whose passion is in producing high quality spirits. All of our spirits are copper pot distilled and produced in fairly small batches of several hundred bottles at a time. Our distillation process is very traditional, involving the maceration of the botanicals, warmed gently in the still overnight to release the essential oils that give all the underpinning flavours to our gin. The balance of the essential oils that come over in the distillation then blended with our very own honey are fundamental to the character to the spirit. The years of expertise from the distiller is critical to ensure we end up with a great tasting product. What is your ambition for your Three Bees Gin in the years to come?
We would like to steadily grow the brand, to be "the" brand for honey-based spirits. We would very much like it to be a success, however we do need to be conscious of how big we can grow as we still need to be able to keep up with the honey production. We are currently in a position to be able to keep up with around 50,000 bottles per year so will be good for some time yet! What are your favourite ways to drink your gin? When not drinking neat from the bottle… we quite like to drink our gin with a slimline tonic and garnish of lemon. Or we get creative and make a Bees Knees cocktail or better still mix our gin into a Singapore Sting, our play on a Singapore Sling! Desert Island Gins: Which 3 gins would you take with you and why?
What's next for you and Three Bees Gin - any exciting plans? We have some exciting punchy flavours being developed in the background that we aim to launch at some point in the near future, which we hope will hopefully be popular and complement our existing line. You Might Also Like...
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