Husband and wife team John Cherry and Cynthia King founded Locksley Distilling Co 10 years ago, in John’s parents’ attic. They moved to Portland Works in 2014, where the company has expanded into a number of units and is now a team of nine.
“John and I lived in the States but he was from Sheffield originally. When our daughter was getting towards school age, we decided we didn’t want to be in New York anymore and we moved back to his hometown. John was always in the booze industry and we invested in the company rather than investing in a house straight away.
“It took about a year of development, then we came upon the right recipe and the right labels and everything that goes with the gin. Initially we were working from John’s parents’ attic, with a three-litre still. Now our main still is 250L! In 2014, we moved to Portland Works and have been here ever since.
“We started out in what is still our main unit, but it’s on the first floor, and distilling gin was idiosyncratic with a Victorian listed building! Now we also have two units on the ground floor, and we use a fork lift truck instead of hoists.
“Sir Robin of Locksley is our original and flagship gin. We have two other gins in our core range, as well as a range of liqueurs. We collaborate with breweries, restaurants and hotels to create a gin specific to them, and we work with retailers. We recently made a gin to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Crucible Theatre.
“We now have a staff of nine and have opened a gin school, where we have eight one-litre mini stills. We have 100 botanicals to choose from and our visitors are set free, guided by our resident flavour expert.
“There are a lot of distilleries in Yorkshire but we were among the first and we are one of the best! We are continually outgrowing our space and are constantly in that small-business circle of needing more staff to expand, but needing to expand before we can pay for the staff.
“We really love Portland Works. Whenever we need anything fixing or building, we go to our neighbours. Our gin school table was built by Mark from SquarePegs, who has a powder coating machine. To be a tenant here, you have to be a maker of some description, so we are surrounded by creative people.
More info: https://www.locksleydistilling.com/
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