Image: Luke Phillps Photography
GOOD SPIRITS
CHEW VALLEY DISTILLERY cvdistillery.co.uk Joe Kelly, founder, owner and distiller at Chew Valley Distillery, tells us more about his venture. Chew Valley Distillery is a relatively new venture isn’t it? How’s it going? Launched in February 2020 Chew Valley Distillery was only ever supposed to be a house gin for my father’s restaurant — The Lazy Lobster. Now just over a year later, we have our own distillery and bar in the heart of Chew Valley, which is based between Bristol and Bath. Our spirits are now multi-award winning on an international scale (we won Bronze at the World Gin Awards, and Silver and Bronze at the London Spirit Awards. We were also awarded gold and silver by Taste of the West, and Gin Guide named us winner in the London Dry,
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Navy Strength categories). The distillery itself was voted the New Distillery of the Year at this year’s international Gin Guide Awards. All gins in our range are distilled by me in traditional copper stills, using only the best botanicals and purest water which is provided by Cheddar spring water. That’s brilliant! So what’s next? We have secured a premises to upscale and plan to begin the journey distilling rum and vodka alongside our gin early next year. Anything else we should know about Chew Valley Distillery? We also distil gin for other companies. We currently distil for Clevedon Distillery, XV Gins (two players from Bristol Bears Rugby team) and Suave Owl (a men’s formal wear producer based in Bath). We have a few more exciting, but secret, collaborations in the pipeline too!
