Oxford’s first (legal) distillery is here, and it’s taking a pioneering approach to sustainable spirits. We visited The Oxford Artisan Distillery to find out why the team began distilling gin, whisky, absinthe and more using medieval grains.
Though it officially opened at the end of July, it could be said that the essence of The Oxford Artisan Distillery dates back centuries. Established by former music mogul Tom Nicolson, the “grain-to-glass” operation is the first of its kind to distill spirits using grains that were commonplace in Britain in the Middle Ages – before the rise of industrial agriculture and the monocultures grown today – all hailing from four organic farms within a 50-mile radius of Oxford.
It’s a process that could only be possible with the know-how of Canadian archaeo-botanist John Letts, who set about meticulously reviving these historic crops in 1993 after he was gifted a bag of medieval wheat rescued from a thatched cottage. He started with “a handful, because the seeds were dead”, and initially cultivated the grain to develop high quality straw for thatchers, before turning to flour and finally – after a chance meeting with Nicholson at a farmers’ market – booze.
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