THE STORY…

Drawn by a common passion for craft distilling a group of friends came together to create a new kind of distillery producing handcrafted, artisan spirits with uncompromising quality. In an extraordinary location on the Duke of Northumberland’s Albury Estate, a group of dilapidated farm buildings on the banks of the legendary Silent Pool has been transformed to become the home of the Silent Pool Distillers. In keeping with the original vision for a sustainable business, a vintage woodfired steam boiler was restored to power the handbuilt copper still, created for Silent Pool Distillers by the Arnold Holstein Company in the Lake Constance area of Germany. 

THE APPROACH..

Our original inspiration for our award-winning gin was drawn from the Silent Pool and the surrounding natural beauty. Months of research had to go into extracting exactly the right combination of flavours from our romantic botanicals. We broke each ingredient down to the molecular level, identified each ingredient’s flavour profile, and the best way to obtain it through the distillation process.

Our unique four-stage process allows us to precisely control the quality and flavour of our gins. A portion of our botanicals, including Bosnian Juniper berries, liquorice root, cassia bark, orris, and bergamot are bruised and macerated in base spirit before being transferred to the still. These give depth and mouthfeel, the rich and heavier flavours.

Then we have the gin basket infusion, which hangs in the neck of our Holstein still. Fresh orange and lime peel, dried pears, Macedonian Juniper and Polish Angelica, to name but a few, lift the spirit with bright aromatics and rich citrus notes.

The more delicate botanicals such as rose petals, kaffir lime leaves, linden and elderflower are separately macerated in a process that we’ve called the ‘Gin Tea Infusion’, stripping the oils and aromatic compounds from the vegetal matter. This is strained and added to the pot, which lend the gin its ethereal high notes of perfumed lime and floral essence.

The distillation process is completed using a multi-chambered fractioning column, and through precise control over a series of plates and cooling pipes, we are able to perfectly balance the final spirit. The resulting spirit is bright and floral with endless depth and complexity, makes an award-winning G&T yet it is smooth enough to sip neat.