HEPPLE - Gin - 45%
The Hepple estate stretches over more than 1,600 hectares from the Simonside Hills, a sandstone range that runs through central Northumberland, to pastures on the banks of the River Coquet in the North of England. Celebrity chef Valentine Warner brought legendary bartender Nick Strangeway and developer of Cairbry Hill Distillery to Hepple to meet Walter Riddell, owner of Hepple Estate in March 2013. To capture the true taste of juniper, they had to rethink every step of the Gin manufacturing process. This is because conventional distillation can destroy delicate flavours as it occurs at 80 degrees. So, they explored the fields of vacuum distillation, extraction, ultrasound and other high precision techniques. In the fall of 2014, Chris Garden, the Sipsmith distiller, moved to Newcastle where his wife's family lived. Valentine contacts him and Chris, having declared that he would never make another Gin, found the project interesting enough to join him. Hepple Gin was then released in October 2015. Since mid-2020, the Hepple estate has also embarked on a new land management plan which aims to allow a much more natural regeneration of wild plants through the introduction of extensive grazing.