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ELLIE DOBING, DIRECTOR; PAUL REVELL, DISTILLER; KATHY CATON, FOUNDER; RACHEL BLAKE, EVENTS COORDINATOR & MANAGEMENT ASSISTANT; CHARLY THIEME, OPERATIONS MANAGER; JUDE WHITE, PRODUCTION MANAGER.
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THE SPIRIT OF BRIGHTON Not just your average distillery, Brighton Gin has been delivering LGBTQ community support for years. Founder Kathy Caton and operations manager Charly Thieme tell Jaq Bayles why the team is so important and how they stepped up to do their bit during lockdown ) Brighton Gin is, as far as founder Kathy
Caton is aware, Europe’s only craft distillery that is LGBTQ+ run and staffed (“with the noble exception of our production manager”, who is Kathy’s mum) and, indeed, has staff who “look after every letter of the acronym”. So was this a happy accident or by design? “It was by accident,” says Kathy, “although then we look back and say, ‘or have we done this subconsciously?’. Have we given opportunities to people who may not have had opportunities elsewhere? My background is so much in all things community-shaped, whether it being involved in setting up Radio Reverb back in the day, or my community focused radio show and the LGBTQ show I’m doing for BBC Radio Sussex [Out With Kathy] and I think it’s sort of happened without thinking about it in a way – but it’s something I’m really delighted we have done.” Set up in 2012, Brighton Gin has a rich history of supporting the LGBTQ+ community, including raising money for the Brighton Rainbow Fund for the past five years with its annual limited-edition bottle celebrating Pride
and showcasing queer artists in the process. This year it is planning something big that will provide longer-term Brighton Rainbow Fund support; details should be announced soon.
“We are a bootstrap business and our team has really put their shoulders to the wheel and responded to the fact they were suddenly being asked to make notfor-profit hand sanitiser, delivering locally around town on pushbikes” It also tries to support some of the Fund’s key charitable organisations, for example providing raffle prizes for the Sussex Beacon or Brighton Bear Weekend. “There’s so much value in the fact that the Brighton Rainbow Fund is instrumental in making sure some of the much smaller organisations have been supported and the need for that is not going anywhere,” says Kathy. She adds it’s important that the team reflects where Brighton Gin is made and the diversity of the city, especially as so many gins that claim to be locally made are actually produced by the same major distiller. “It says Brighton
Gin on the bottle so we should be born and raised in Brighton. I love the fact that we have a 53-year age gap between our oldest and youngest employee. People just bring such different experiences to things – our lead distiller used to be a ballet dancer – I love that there are all these different skills people can bring that come from a different perspective. I didn’t realise how even having a woman running the distillery is a pretty unusual thing.” “And actually a woman who’s not the wife,” chips in operations manager Charly Thieme, “it’s not a husband and wife team, which is very common in a distillery.” Championing the team’s diversity is one of Kathy’s big passions and she is committed to the company being what it says it is. “We are under the whole community spirit banner and this is so far from a pink washing or rainbow washing thing.” The company’s commitment is throughout the year and it clearly riles her “when people put a rainbow on things and don’t actually give anything back – a pub you would normally be scared to go into puts a bit of rainbow bunting out one weekend of the year.”
