Fledgling Welshpool distillery drops in for Gin of Year award in London

A FLEDGLING Welshpool distillery won Gin of the Year at an international competition in London last month.

Still within its first year of operations, High Spirits Distillery won four accolades at the first Beverage Trade Network London Spirits Competition.

This includes Best in Show (Australia) and Best Spirit of the Year (By Quality), and a gold medal for its High Spirits Gin.

Judges were looking for drinkability, value for money, and packaging, with 16 competition judges selected from within the UK beverage industry to give a weighted score out of 100.

Any score above 90 was awarded a gold medal.

High Spirits Distillery is a family-owned and operated craft distillery on President Street, High Wycombe resident Mike Caban said.

He and his brother Jade share a love of local produce and top-quality drinks, and set out to use WA-grown biodynamic, unmalted triticale – a hybrid of wheat and rye – for their vodka and dry gin.

“High Spirits Distillery is one of only two distilleries in the world making a vodka from 100 per cent unmalted triticale and the only one in the world that we know of producing a dry gin from this base spirit,” Mike Caban said.

“We also are slowly laying down barrels of whiskey to age, also using biodynamic grain from Dumbleyung and filling ex-Bourbon barrels from Kentucky USA with dark rum.

“We currently have our vodka and dry gin on the market and have also released a strawberry and black pepper gin under our recently released Micro Batch Label.”

“Our plans for the future are steady, organic, natural growth and to lay a few barrels down using both classic and alternative grains and a regular focus on distilled specialty spirits using seasonal produce to be showcased through the Micro Batch Series.”

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