"Smooth enough to be sipped, bold enough to be mixed."
We started in our Garden Shed and moved to The Old Calf Shed in 2019. Here, we opened a Visitor Attraction, winning both Cumbria Tourism's EXPERIENCE OF THE YEAR, 2022 & The Icons of Gin, BEST VISITOR ATTRACTION, 2022. We host Cumbria's only Make Your Own Gin Experiences, as well as Distillery Tours & Tastings and a botanical-inspired Afternoon G&Tea. Our awards include Great Taste, Crafdi, The World Gin Awards, The World Vodka Awards and The World Liqueur Awards. Plus the Gin Distillery has won The Gin Guide's, ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY AWARD, in 2020, 2021, 2022 & 2023. Cuckold's Revenge, the very first Gin we created, is featured in "101 Gins To Try Before You Die"!
We're looking forward to seeing you at Shed One Distillery, in the meantime we deliver our products nationwide.
Shed One, raising a smile since 2016!
Born in Bury. Mr Gin holidayed in the Lake District as a child, where he learned that weather can hurt! However, he still fell in love with the area and made it his home.
A professional actor for over 20 years. He’s tread the boards from Land’s End to John O’Groats and from Asia to America with Shakespeare’s Globe and Northern Broadsides, among others. On screen, he’s ridden around Manchester with John Thomson while filming “Cold Feet”. Been pelted with tomatoes in French stocks in “Merlin”. And he had to make friends with a female tarantula for his role in “Tracy Beaker Returns” Ask him about the afternoon he spent being kicked by Nigel Havers!
His CV includes horse riding, puppetry and wielding a ballwhip!
Mrs Gin arrived in Cumbria via an interesting route-taking in Scotland, various parts of England, South America, The Galapagos, South Africa, America, Japan & South Korea. Some may say she is an international woman of mystery, others may not.
She has a penchant for graveyards, linguistics and cooking. Plus, due to her past life as special paint finisher, she’s a dab hand at marbling and painting murials.
Mrs G loves creating new gin recipes; however, if you don’t like one, it was his idea!
Meet our Gin Elf. This is a role that is dynamic, busy and very creative: much like Lindsay herself. A regular week can see her in the distillery assisting Andy with gin production, concocting marketing strategies with Zoe and Thea and hosting our ever popular gin experiences. Lindsay’s degree in Archaeology makes her perfect for this role.
Lindsay likes her processes to be efficient and has stealthily been changing things since she joined Shed One in 2021. What this actually means is that she’s often moving things and nobody but her knows where they are. Her favourite thing about Shed One is all the stories: about the gins and the people she works with. Lindsay brings her own compendium of tales of living in foreign lands, etymology and volunteering with Brownies and at local events.
A skilled photographer, Lindsay has documented weddings, events and family life locally and recently exhibited as an artist. When she’s not at Shed One taste testing new gins (the hardship), or taking product photos, Lindsay loves a walk in the Lakes with her family, returning to a good measure of Cuckold’s Revenge gin.
Thea, our Botanical Pixie, arrived at Shed One in early 2022. Heralding from the herbal realm, Thea brought with her a myriad of botanical and medical knowledge as well as a passion for creating cocktails and potions.
Thea graduated from The University of Central Lancashire in 2008 with a degree in Herbal Medicine, and has gone on to run her own clinic, apothecary and online shop. She has a special interest in psychology and loves nothing better than an insomniac challenge.
When she’s not playing in the gin palace, Thea can be found cooking ramen, sipping Fancy Frolic in the bath or experimenting with new skin care recipes in her kitchen.
Images of Team Shed, Gin Elf & Botanical Pixie by Lindsay Ward.
Zoe had been making compound gin elixirs for a while and Andy started getting more interested in the process. After playing with botanicals together, we decided it was time to take it up a notch and produce our own gin.
So, the next question was, where? Somewhere big enough for a small still, close to home would be good, rent-free even better.
“How about the shed?”
“Which one?” (We have two sheds in our garden)
“Shed One, closest to the house.”
And so, Shed 1 Distillery was born.
Andy & Zoe create most of Shed One gins together. Sometimes, one will have more influence over the final recipe than the other. Plus, we work together and separately on bespoke, limited editions for other people and businesses.
(Since late 2019, we have slowly turned Shed One back into our garden shed, as we moved over to The Old Calf Shed.)
We get asked this regularly, so here is our guide to setting up a gin distillery. There may be things we’ve managed to erase from our memories (not always smooth sailing), but the one thing we must emphasise is everyone we spoke to wanted to help.
First point of call is HMRC. You may have heard that you can’t get a license to distil and rectify unless you have an 1800 litre still. This was never made law. It was only a guideline to stop people from blowing themselves up in their sheds, caves and other dwellings. The HMRC are helpful and can guide you through the process of getting your government licences.
Become a member of the Alcohol Wholesalers Registration Scheme.
Register with HMRC for Duty Stamps if you are going to sell your spirit in 300ml bottles or larger.
Now the real fun starts! Contact your local licensing department, where you will hopefully find a kind, knowledgeable soul who will help you through the minefield that can be all the local licenses you need: personal, premises etc, as well as directing you to the courses you may have to take to obtain them. What you need differs from area to area. We have been very lucky with the friendly people we’ve come across.
Now we head off to the planning department. Where is your still situated? Do you need a change of use putting on the building. Would there be an increase of traffic that impacts your neighbourhood? How do your neighbours feel about it? Have you ever fallen out with them or like us, have they become an intrinsic part of your taste-testing team?
If you are on an industrial estate, don’t take it for granted that it will be easy peasy lemon squeezy as the building may still need change of use. What will be the environmental impact?
Trading Standards and Environmental Health will find you. Either sit back and wait for a mysterious knock on the door, or get on the phone and have a chat. They will talk about weights, measures, types, standards, restrictions…You may feel you have thought of everything, but these guys will surprise you! They have many knowledgables and are happy to impart.
Lock yourself in a dark, quiet room. Think it all through and decide whether you really do still want to do this….
You decided you still want to do this! So:
What will you need and where are you going to store it all? Large bottles, small bottles, bottles shaped like bottles, bottles shaped like skulls, dolphins, unicorns. Corks: large corks, small corks, corks that fit, corks that don’t fit, do you want corks? How are you going to seal your tops: wax, paper, plastic, Cellotape, granny’s crochet? Packaging: boxes for single bottles, boxes for triple bottles, boxes for posting boxes of bottles, 99% of boxes will be the wrong size, custom boxes can cost more than your gin! Labels: design, front label, back label, side label (?), colour, size, texture, type, matt, gloss, applied by hand or machine, wording. Logistics and supply of all raw materials: where are you getting them, will they have them the next time you ask, is it twice the price than before because it’s a Tuesday Marketing: social media, advertising, promotion, POS, walking round town with a sandwich board, wrapping your car, your van, your dog. Invoicing, banking, bookkeeping, credit agreements: don’t get us started!
Don’t forget the still!
You may feel you need to collapse with a drink. The one good thing is, if you bite the bullet, you will always have a supply on tap!
Cheers!
