Cornwall’s first …
We were excited to be invited to explore Cornwall’s first plough to bottle distillery recently. Based on Colwith Farm, a 200 acre family owned farm located between Lostwithiel and Fowey, Colwith Farm Distillery is founded upon five generations of farming and is an innovative distillery that can truly claim its products are ‘home-made’ with everything being produced from scratch on this single estate. The potatoes from their farm being converted to gin and vodka on site … how amazing! This is Cornwall’s first single estate distillery.
We learnt a lot about the distilling process and how intricate it really is, we even got to sample some of the goods. Because of the array of crops being grown on Colwith Farm, a variety of premium spirits can be crafted here so we tried Aval Dor (Cornish for potato) Vodka made from Colwith Farm King Edward potatoes, Stafford’s Gin which is created by blending and infusing botanicals from Colwith Farm with the Aval Dor Vodka and, finally, Fowey River Gin which is distilled from Haye Farm‘s Cornish Cider who claim to be the oldest makers of traditional cider in the world!
I have to say that I love a good G&T as much as the next person but if you handed me some straight gin I wouldn’t usually be too keen. To really put it to the test though I tried the gin neat … and I can safely say I didn’t make that screwed up face whilst the gin burnt my throat, it had a lovely flavour and a really smooth texture. It tasted really pure and fresh rather than similar to a product you may find in your DIY cupboard and I was pleasantly surprised.
The farm is on a beautiful site with rolling hills surrounding it and it was really great to see this modern and innovative business compliment and grow from a more traditional one. It was also really interesting to see first hand how these products are created and become familiar with the products at different stages in their development.
It’s fantastic to see a business here in Cornwall breaking the mould and how much more authentic can your spirits really be?!
You can now book distillery tours, with tasting of course, directly on the website here.
To find out more about Colwith Farm Distillery read more on the website or see the visual story on Instagram.
