Puddingstone Distillery
This November marked another milestone for one of the region’s very popular local businesses, Puddingstone Distillery, the home of Campfire® Gin.
It is now 4 years since co-founders Kate and Ben Marston opened the doors to the distillery, based at the PE Mead & Sons farm shop, in Wilstone, Tring. During that time the distillery has picked up over 10 international awards, business awards, critical acclaim amongst industry commentators and has raised thousands of pounds for local conservation and wildlife charities. They even won the 2019 World’s Best Martini Challenge.
There’s also another reason to be celebrating, because November is when the team launch their range of winter/Christmas edition gins, simply known as PUD PUD Gin. Short for Puddingstone Pudding Gin, the original PUD PUD Gin is a distillation of juniper, sweet orange peel and Hertfordshire made Christmas puddings. This is very much a gin with the pudding contributing subtle candied fruit notes. PUD PUD Cask Gin is the same gin but rested in American oak ex-bourbon barrels, not once but twice. The magic is that for the second resting the barrels have been recharged with ruby port. Now there’s a combination of flavours we guarantee are designed for cold nights and fireside tipples. The colour is also quite outstanding. Finally, there is PUD PUD Cherry Gin. This again is a barrel-aged version of the original with the addition of local, handpicked, fresh lapin cherries from Horwood Cherries in Buckinghamshire. The gin and cherries rest in barrels throughout the autumn before the filtering and bottling of the deep ruby liquid commences. Ben and Kate are keen to stress that there’s no added sugar in these (or any of their gins), after all you’re going to pick up some sweetness from your tonic which also helps to open up the amazingly complex flavours found in the PUD PUD Gin family.
As you can imagine the PUD PUD Gin range sells out very quickly. At time of writing, we’ve heard that half the stock has already been sold. There’s no doubt its popularity is down to the reputation that the Puddingstone Distillery team have justifiably earned. The striking metallic foil, wood veneer label sets the bottle aside and when The Telegraph listed it in their top 3 Christmas gins 2018 and voted it the best Christmas gin 2019, you can understand why folks are dropping into the distillery or heading to its online shop to grab a bottle. If you are looking for a special gin gift then the PUD PUD gin and the Campfire gin range come in single gift boxes or a set with two glasses. Did we mention that they are also covering all the shipping costs on orders of £35 or more?
But what about, after Christmas? Well, we’ve been informed that this year’s pandemic prevented a couple of projects from taking place, but hopefully things will be back on track in 2021. Keep your eyes peeled for a new fundraising collaboration with the Herts & Middlesex Wildlife Trust as well as another local business.
To keep up to speed with the distillery’s activities, head over to their website and if we’ve whet your appetite, why not visit the distillery, open Friday and Saturday 9.30 – 5.00 (extra December hours tbc) or head over to the distillery shop and check out their range of gins, gifting options and cocktail accessories.