Brave a venture into the wild lands of Harrington, Northamptonshire, and you’ll discover one of the most popular UK craft distilleries of recent years, Warner Edwards. Founded by a pair of long-time friends Tom Warner and Sion Edwards (can you guess where the distillery name came from?) back in 2012, they have since produced a selection of immensely popular gins and picked up an overflowing bucket of awards - though gin was not always on the cards…
Tom and Sion met back in 1997, when they began studying at an agricultural college. During and following their studies, they planned on establishing a company together. Both of their families owned farms, and given their hands-on experience from studying, this lead them towards the idea of making essential oils (which aren’t nearly as tasty as gin, let us assure you). This idea fell to the wayside, and a plan was hatched to make vodka (getting there on the tastiness scale). Soon enough, this idea developed into a plot to create their own gin, and eventually the first bottles of Warner Edwards Harrington Dry Gin were sold in December 2012.
Located in a 200 year old stone barn on Fall Farms (owned by Tom’s family), Warner Edwards is based around curiosity. Both figuratively and literally. The distillers are busy trying new things to see if they work, and their 500-litre Arnold Holstein still is actually named Curiosity. In 2016, the family grew a little bit larger with the introduction of a second still - Satisfaction, a 50-litre copper pot still. While Curiosity is the major work-horse, Satisfaction splits its time between experimenting with new botanicals and taking some of the workload off of Curiosity. Together, the team produce Warner Edwards Harrington Dry Gin, Warner Edwards Harrington Sloe Gin and the spectacularly popular Warner Edwards Victoria's Rhubarb Gin, made with a variety of rhubarb originally grown in Queen Victoria's garden.