When did you start up and why? We launched our flagship Sixtowns London Dry Gin in November 2020, during the COVID pandemic. Our background is selling state of the art Genio distillery equipment and during the pandemic we were unable to go out on installations. Crafting our own spirits inspired by our home in Stoke-on-Trent had always been a dream of ours. The small town we are originally from in Latvia is well known for its ceramic production and when we arrived in Stoke the pot bank lined cityscape and the rich ceramics heritage made us instantly feel at home in “The Potteries” (as Stoke-on-Trent is quirkily known)! What prompted you to launch the business? Growing up we watched our grandparents grow grain and use secret family recipes passed down through generations to produce fine spirits. You could say distilling is in our blood. In 2016 we turned to our heritage and began selling state-of-the-art Genio distillery equipment. We had always wanted to produce our own spirits using our experience and industry knowledge but until the pandemic hit, we hadn’t been able to devote the time. During the pandemic we were unable to go out on installations and we took the time to combine our mutual love for crafting spirits with our family’s secret recipes and set out on our mission to create an artisan gin that encapsulated the refined craftmanship of our home in Stoke-onTrent… and Sixtowns Gin was born. What challenges have you overcome since the company’s launch? Space has been an issue; we rapidly ran out of space quite quickly so we’ve recently moved to a such bigger premises where we are working on some very exciting things! It’s the next chapter for us and means we’ll be able to welcome visitors to experience the distillery in a whole new way. Tell us about your product offering. Our flagship product is our Sixtowns London Dry Gin launched in November 2020. We use the finest, ethically sourced and natural ingredients in our gin because we maintain a commitment to quality. Our unique blend of botanicals gives rise to an exceptionally smooth and satisfying classic London Dry making our gin perfect for neat sipping, a classic G&T or in cocktails. Our recipe is of course a family secret perfected over decades and passed down through the generations. Our complete recipe is and always will be a family secret perfected over decades and therefore our complete list of botanicals will never be revealed, but we are able to tell you that Sixtowns has light and delicate aromas of juniper, cardamom and zesty lemon before warming ginger and pink peppercorns develop on the palette. It’s a super smooth and delicious London Dry style gin! In April 2021 we launched our Sixtowns Organic Vodka. Staying true to our ethos of creating small batch premium spirits we developed our family recipe using the purest water and the finest organic grain. A crisp and refreshing vodka carefully crafted for use in cocktails or long drinks and made with the same passion and expertise as our gin. For Christmas 2021 and with rum on the rise and becoming increasingly popular we turned our stills to rum production to produce our Sixtowns Spiced Rum. A delicious blend of mixed spices with tasting notes of caramel, apple pie, cinnamon, warm ginger, vanilla, subtle chocolate and a crackle of peppercorn. We like to think it has just the right balance of both sweet and spice! Our latest product release this August came about when our London Dry Gin 108
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