Posted: 28 / 06 / 2019

What’s the story behind the brand?

Brindle Distillery started in June 2017 with a vision by Gerrard Singleton and his son-in-law Mark Long. Gerrard had farmed the land in Brindle, Lancashire, in which the distillery now sits for over 40 years, being the second generation Singleton to tend the land on Holmes Farm. The farm itself and the buildings surrounding have been in the family for over 100 years.

With a nationwide downturn in independent farming, Gerrard and Mark had decided to diversify the farm but still make use of the land. With this in mind, they came up with an idea to make a gin completely from scratch. Gerrard harvested barley in the fields around the farm to make our base spirit. On top of this, we use our own spring water in the process as well.

The inspiration behind the start of the company was to keep the farm in the family for future generations as well as bringing employment and tourism into the local area.

What’s your highlight so far?

We have achieved a lot in the short two years we have been in production. We have three award-winning gins, Cuckoo Signature, Cuckoo Spiced, and Cuckoo Sunshine Raspberry & Honey, the former most recently awarded a prestigious gold medal at the San Francisco International Spirit Awards and the latter awarded Best Flavoured Gin 2018 by The Gin Guide. We have brought employment into the local area, having 5 full-time employees and several part-time employees all living locally within Lancashire. We host tours, workshops and bar nights sporadically in the distillery every week of the month which has brought tourism into the area. The workshops have been a particular highlight. With this experience, we welcome people to come for a tour around the distillery, enjoy a few drinks and also become the distillery for the day by making your very own bottle of gin.

 

What’s your favourite gin from the distillery?

My favourite gin has always been the Cuckoo Signature. As a fan of ‘proper gin’, you can’t really get much better than our Signature. A London Dry, juniper heavy and citrus led gin with complimenting botanicals such as orange, grapefruit, lemon, chamomile, cardamom and almonds. It is very well rounded and balanced. It mixes perfectly with a number of tonics but my favourite mix would have to be with a Mediterranean tonic with plenty of ice and an orange peel.

What makes you different from other brands?

We are different from other brands because of our provenance. Our doors are always open for people to come and have a look at what we do. We can prove to people what we do and prove that we are the best at doing it. We pride ourselves on being the only gin distillery in the North West who make our gin from scratch, the use of the farmland in growing botanicals that go into our gin and our employment of local people.

What’s next for Cuckoo Gin?

We always have new ideas in the pipeline but one that will come to fruition before the end of the year will be the launch of our Cuckoo Rum. It will be the first Lancashire Rum of its kind and we hope to launch before Christmas. We are also launching a charity gin this autumn, in support of the awareness of cervical cancer and smear tests for women along with the charity Jo’s Trust. This is