A Penrith couple have launched their own brand of artisan gin.
Black Cat Distillery, owned by Clare Jeremy, produces small batch handcrafted spirits at Brougham Hall. Her husband, Phil Harrison, is responsible for sales and technical support.
Clare said: “We enjoyed the official launch day of Black Cat Distillery very much, making useful contacts and forging relationships with potential new customers. It was well attended.
“After a stressful time during the COVID pandemic, we decided we wanted a change in direction and lifestyle. Phil has a history in brewing and we owned a specialist Belgian beer bar and bistro in Keswick.
“I have always wanted to own a gin distillery, due to my love of the ginny ambrosia, and after a Eureka moment opening a gin distillery was the obvious choice. After attending distilling courses, I invested my savings into opening Black Cat Distillery.
“Brougham Hall is a lovely location with an artisan atmosphere. It is a peaceful and stress-free place to work. Just what we wanted.”
Clare added: “We want to develop a successful and sustainable business with a foundation of good relationships with our customers and producing high quality, artisan and tasty gins that you can enjoy.”
Black Cat Distillery prides itself on being a producer of gin combining the complex flavours from a wide range of botanicals to create unique flavour profiles.
The inspiration behind Black Cat gin’s recipe development fuses traditional techniques and southern Asiatic and European botanicals with hints of Africa to create modern and elegant flavours.
Black Cat Distillery ties together these cosmopolitan influences with water from the Lakeland fells which contains the very soul of the area. The use of the finest ingredients gives Black Cat gin clean flavours which bubble and combine in a shiny copper pot still. It is twice distilled in the thumper and then condensed to produce the sparkling flow of ginny ambrosia.
In creating the name for Black Cat Distillery, they were inspired by the 18th Century tale of the creative and resourceful entrepreneur Dudley Bradstreet. The 1736 Gin Act tried to curtail the sale of gin so he started discreetly selling gin on the streets of London via a kind of vending machine system. Gin lovers would approach the adapted black cat and say “Puss Puss” and the response would be “Mew Mew” which indicated that gin was available for sale. The money would be inserted into the cat’s mouth and the gin dispensed.
“We have created our own representation of the black cat dispensing machine as our logo,” said Clare.
