WINING & DINING THE GIN RE VOLUT ION
“The quality control was nowhere near as much fun as making gin but we were really happy to help our local community,” Lloyd jokes.
Their stable of four gins is stocked widely around the county in pubs and shops but recently they have relied more on online sales. In addition to their two famous Hill Billy Gins, there’s a potent Distillers Cut, a Toffee Apple liqueur and a host of miniature packages for those wanting to try small before they buy. See our special offer.
Another new gin maker, based just outside Ross on Wye, is Foxtail Gin. Dublin-born Ross Whelan and his wife Leigh moved to the area eight years ago to a former cider house in Hom Green but were still commuting to their London jobs when they decided they needed to more fully immerse themselves in local life and take the plunge with their own business.
Leigh is a trained microbiologist and a passionate forager so when they began discussing ideas for a new venture, they wanted something sustainable that also embraced the best of their local environment and produce.
Ross explained: “Our hearts just weren’t into our careers in the way they once were. We are both creative people and we just thought why don’t we do something we love?”
Ross tapped into his methodical nature too to create their own distillery and again after a period of trial and error they went into production several months later in the spring of 2018.
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“We arrived at 4pm knowing nobody and left at 4am knowing everyone,” he laughs. The two men became firm friends over the years and three years ago, both gin lovers, decided to pursue a new venture producing it.
Lloyd explained: “Glyn had a pub and room for a distillery and I was basically moving liquids for a living and there’s an element of science in that. I was at a point where I needed to reduce my work hours and we just decided to give it a go. We played around with recipes for about 18 months to get the quality and flavour we were looking for. There was lots of trial and error and we made lots of mistakes but we are really proud that this year we won two Gold awards at the London Spirits Awards.” High praise indeed.
All of the products have been developed over their farmhouse kitchen table and then tried and tested in Glyn’s former riverside, award-winning pub.
Tapping into his mechanical engineering knowledge, Lloyd designed the two stills they now use and named them after his two favourite local mountains, Twmpa and Blorenge, in true brewing tradition.
The distillery, which sits alongside the pub, has capacity to produce around 1000 bottles a week and the business was at the point of becoming a full time venture for the two men before Covid struck.
Very quickly they turned their hand to producing hand sanitisers as the country was in desperate need for supplies and within just 10 days they had repurposed their production line and were making and bottling essential supplies for key workers, donating 4,000 bottles to the NHS – complete with juniper botanicals.
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“It was quite a challenge and a massive learning curve. We had to decide if this was going to be a hobby or whether we were a micro-distillery. The licensing and production processes are rightly very stringent and although small scale, we needed to be really professional.
“We are competing with the big brands but have none of their economies of scale. We are completely hands on. We make it, we bottle it and we deliver it.”
The Foxtail stable comprises three gins, their Premium Original and Rhubarb and Custard and Thai Inspired flavoured gins although Ross says he hopes to expand this.
“We are all about innovation, so we would like to take advantage of seasonality with distiller’s cuts highlighting produce that is seasonal.
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