NEWS

News Just the tonic

Mikey Enright

The founder of Alnwick-based Artisan Drinks Co says the business is continuing to expand with new methods of reaching customers during the Covid-19 lockdown.

For founder Steve Cooper, Artisan is the culmination of years of experience in the drinks industry. A previous head of innovation for Coca Cola, it was while he was working in Australia that Artisan Drinks was born.

Steve and his friend Alan Walsh, an artist who has worked on many major branding campaigns, went out one night to The Barbershop, a Sydney bar recently voted The Best Gin Bar in the World. They got talking to bar owner Mikey Enright and realised that their various skills were the perfect mix to launch their own

Steve Cooper

company – creating premium mixers in unique flavours and with a highly visible brand. “The growth in premium spirits made us realise there was a real market for an innovative premium mixer range,” said Steve. “There were other companies which have certainly paved the way, but we like to think of ourselves as the next generation of mixers, building on what’s gone before and offering something really different.”

That “something different” seems to be hitting the mark, with a major export campaign on course for rapid expansion before Covid-19 hit. However, the company is simply taking it in its stride and finding new ways to work. Online orders via its Artisan Drinks shop (www.

Violet Blossom tonic

artisansdrinksc.com) and outlets like Amazon are ensuring that the company is weathering the current storm.

The Artisan Drinks stable currently includes seven flavours, all of them natural, comprising Violet Blossom Tonic, Agave Lemon Tonic, Pink Citrus Tonic, Classic London Tonic and a Skinny London Tonic, along with a Barrel Smoked Cola and a Fiery Ginger Beer.

Pink Citrus Tonic was voted number one by 38,000 members of the Craft Gin Club, the largest monthly gin box subscription in the UK. “That was a fantastic accolade for us and just shows we’re on the right track,” said Steve.

The mixer market has come a long way since your drink was topped up out of a gun in a bar with some syrupy mixture purporting to be cola, soda or tonic. “There’s been an incredible change in this market, because people now want to drink premium spirits and they, understandably, want a premium mixer to enjoy it at its best,” said Steve. “And that’s what we’re offering.”

Garden writer in spotlight

Photo: Shona Branigan

Allendale-based gardening writer Susie White, who writes for several publications including The Northumbrian, The Guardian, BBC Countryfile magazine and My Weekly, has been honoured for her work, having been long-listed for Garden Journalist of the Year in the Property Press Awards.

She was listed alongside well-known gardening experts including Monty Don, Alan Titchmarsh and Adam Frost of BBC Gardeners World.

Susie said: “It’s a real honour to be

Medieval Langley Castle Hotel near Hexham is appealing to genealogists to clarify the identity of its resident ghost.

Staff and visitors have long claimed to have seen an apparition described as the ‘grey lady’, sobbing uncontrollably and heading towards a window. It has been said this was Maud de Lucy, who, on hearing news of her knight husband’s death in battle, jumped from the castle’s highest window. Some have claimed she was the wife of the knight who built

Mystery of castle’s ghostly guest

listed alongside some of the top names in the gardening world. Making it this far is very satisfying.”

Susie is a freelance garden writer, photographer and author of eight books. She spent 23 years at Chesters Walled Garden in the Tyne Valley, where she developed her free-flowing planting style which owes much to herbs, wildflowers, childhood plants and unusual perennials.

With her husband David Oakley, she has created a new garden in a valley in the North Pennines which was featured on BBC Gardeners’ World in 2014.

Langley Castle in 1350, Sir Thomas De Lucy.

But a study of the genealogy of the De Lucy family has led staff at the hotel to wonder if the ghost is in fact Agnes, stepmother to Maud.

The team are now appealing to genealogy experts and history buffs to help it determine whether its sole lockdown guest has indeed been checked in under the wrong name for decades, if not centuries.

Pru wins crime thriller award

Warkworth-based crime writer Pru Heathcote’s first book, Don’t Leave, which she wrote in the first month of lockdown, has won the Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction.

The award, for debut works of crime fiction featuring the North East, is sponsored by Northumberland-based author LJ Ross in association with Newcastle Noir Crime Writing Festival. It attracted more than 500 entries.

Don’t Leave is a psychological thriller with a supernatural element set in a location inspired by The Old Bathing House on the Northumberland coast at Howick.

“I only started writing the book at the start of the Covid-19 lockdown and just managed to get the entry in by the end of March deadline,” said Pru.

LJ Ross was impressed by the way Pru had “brought all the strands together” in combining the crime and supernatural elements.

“It’s not easy to meld such different concepts into the story,” she said. “It showed a raw natural talent. There is a great twist in the tail, with shades of Daphne DuMaurier.”