‘It all started 20 years ago, when I opted to leave the family fertiliser business to chase the ‘corporate dream’. I quickly found myself working in the alcohol industry, never wanting to leave. But over my career, coming from a manufacturing background, I kept asking the same question….
Why do most brands choose to import their spirit, especially Rum, instead of making it themselves?
The reason is, producing spirits from scratch using traditional methods can use up a huge amount of energy and can also be very, very wasteful. So for most, it’s much easier and cheaper just to import spirit.
So whats the problem? Well the authentic flavour of a spirit is actually created in the early fermentation stages, so by outsourcing this to the few bulk producers out there, there is little differentiation between a huge number of brands who ultimately have no control over the authentic flavour of the spirit.
But it got me thinking….
What if we could make British spirits that our environment could benefit from?
So I left my career behind and moved back home to find a new way of producing spirits - one that solved the problems of scratch production so we could produce the smoothest, authentic, British-made spirits that actually benefited our environment, instead of taking from it. Working in partnership with the same family business I left all those years ago, we use 50 yrs of science and technology expertise to transform traditional distilling to create something so valuable for the environment, you could argue the spirits are the by-product! ‘
The Chemistry
Meet Josh, our Head Distiller, who is passionate about making spirits from scratch and is relentless in his pursuit to finesse perfect recipes.
The initial fermentation stage is where the alcohol is created and the flavour developed. Our unique recipe blends the finest molasses with water and applies 3 key elements; a secret yeast recipe, heat and nutrition. These elements help to create the optimum environment for the yeast to convert sugars into alcohol which ultimately determines the authentic aroma and flavor development of a spirit.
The final stage is dilution and happens once a spirit has been distilled. We use water in it’s absolute purest form - it contains no minerals or ions, which can impact flavour, as we want to protect the authentic flavour of the spirit as much as possible.
The Physics
Distilling uses up a huge amount of energy so reducing this significantly has been our biggest goal. Not only is it much better for the environment, but our efficiency means we can be very selective in ‘cuts’ of alcohol we use for our final product, resulting in a higher quality spirit.
This is all done through our innovative heat reclamation processes, where we reuse our heat, and also our modern still which is designed to use up to 75% less energy than traditional stills.
We can also combine different distilling techniques in one go allowing us to cut energy usage in half. Traditionally, applying different techniques to the same spirit require two separate distilling sessions.
The Biology
A struggle for many distilleries is the huge amount of ‘waste’ left over from fermented ingredients after distilling.
However, we work hard to ensure our by-products are rich in valuable nutrients so that, by working with the family crop nutrition business, we can extract these nutrients to create a fertiliser that’s scientifically proven to improve soil health.
This fertiliser is so valuable to the environment itself, you could argue the ‘spirit’ is the waste product!
Let’s be friends
You probably feel like you know us already! But if you want to know more, get in touch.