For the Gin of it
This is the story of a family from Henley-on-Thames and a campfire-loving couple.
Gin distilleries are not unique to this region, they become local and special only because of the stories told by the families who craft and create new products and share the links they have made with their immediate landscape.
These day’s you will find a distillery in most places: from the Outer Hebrides to almost every city across the UK whilst others are tucked away down country lanes inside unlikely buildings.
A follower of fashion
It’s usually all about personality and how that matches what is created isn’t it? In this Micro Travels with Mary newsletter, I am sharing the stories of two local gin distilleries who bring a great taste that complements the story of our beautiful Chiltern Hills. These producers love where they are from and just want to make everything better.
Located at opposite ends of the Chilterns, the first in Binfield Heath near Henley-on-Thames and the second in Wilstone near Tring , these two food producers 35 miles apart are changing and challenging how we work with our local environment.
The Henley Distillery
Down a bumpy lane outside Henley-on-Thames, inside a 17th century barn you will find a local family and their local business, the Henley Distillery. Alan’s son, Jacob is making this enterprise his own. The youngest master distiller in the country, with his father Alan, they are doing things their own way. They welcomed us as hosts for our regular Chilterns Tourism Network meeting last week in their cosy tasting room, a place you could conjure more than simply cordials. Alan showed us around and I left with a warm fuzzy feeling and a bottle in my bag!
Puddingstone Distillery
Chilterns champions, Kate and Ben Marston have been forging ahead with innovative style and countryside alchemy with their ‘under the stars’ ethos: take a ‘marketing man’ and mix with a ‘graphics guru’, absorb experiences, refine them, mix them up and turn them into something great.. Campfire Gin!
The pair have considered, at every step the landscape around them, so much so they have named their distillery after the rare local rock formation called Puddingstone. The harbinger of new life and and a protection against evil spirits, they like to think it’s an assured way of keeping the ‘good spirits’ inside the distillery. Sounds like a plan!
This short video is an interview I did with Ben and Kate who told me how bats and balsam inspire them.
A follower of fashion, I also stopped drinking gin for many years, until I visited Puddingstone Distillery, a hop, skip and jump from my front door, and have never looked back!
Which distilleries you have visited that are local and special to you?
Quick links
Regular tutorials, tasting and tours are offered by Puddingstone Distillery and the Henley Distillery.
Read about Ashridge gardens, a magical place of growing puddingstones, 18th century landscape designers and an acorn from a princess in an earlier newsletter.
The current gin craze knows no bounds, but the British have been imbibing the stuff for hundreds of years, sometimes with disastrous results. Read about the Intoxicating History of Gin.
Winter in the Chilterns: the ambient sounds louder, the views wider and more intense and unexpected pathways, routes and earthworks are revealed by skeletal undergrowth. It matters not where they lead, just follow!