The Fishers team were very friendly, the tour was informative and the tastings hugely enjoyable (hic!). We ended up chatting with our hosts for much longer than the planned tour time as they were so welcoming and accommodating. The experience is highly recommended. Suffolk, in East Anglia, located on the east coast of England, is a beautiful rural county and a fine place for foodies to visit. It’s famous for its pig farming and high quality pork as well as the seafood bounty from its 50 mile coastline. Adnam’s brewery is also based in Suffolk and most pubs in the area seem to be associated with them. Suffolk can also boast the closest gin distillery to the sea. Fishers Gin was created to capture the essence of one of England’s most beautiful coastlines, Suffolk, and it does this perfectly. It tastes of the tangy British seaside air, reminiscent of childhood holidays on windy beaches.

Fishers Gin is located in the coastal town of Aldeburgh and the team aim to capture the flavours of the area in their gin using locally foraged botanicals such as samphire and sea purslane. The distillery is located right by the seashore – literally a stone’s throw from the beach. They offer tours of the distillery – an afternoon tour and, later, a sundowner, which has all the elements of the earlier tour but you also get to taste some local food and go home with a Fishers tote bag and a gin mug. We opted for the sundowner. As part of the tour we learned about the history of gin – that it originated in the Netherlands – and also about the different botanicals used in the gin-making process by making a botanical tea. We were provided with the botanicals and an empty teabag (as well as another G&T to help the process) and tasted a variety of flavours. I had my first taste of Fishers Gin, quite fittingly, after a day at the beach. Since then, it has been kept for very special occasions and feels like a treat when I have a glass. What I used as a garnish

Tours & Tastings

After a few months of lusting after Fishers Gin online, I decided to take the plunge and treat myself to a bottle. It’s probably one of the best decisions I have ever made. Not only is it a beautifully unique gin, the fishing net inspired bottle looks stunning as it takes pride of place on my gin shelf. After watching an audio visual display about the local area and botanicals we met the still, which is named Watson after the owner’s dog. The gin making process was explained to us: The botanicals infuse in the base spirit for 16 hours before distillation. There are three outputs from the still: the head (the first few litres of liquid that emerge from the condenser), the heart and the tail (the last few litres). Like whisky, the head and tail are discarded. The smoked gin used botanicals that had been smoked at Orford smoke house, just down the road from Aldeburgh, for six days. Curiously, you can almost smell smoked fish on the nose but the finished gin is smooth on the palette, loses any fishiness but retains a gorgeously subtle smoky flavour. What is particularly interesting about this gin is the way that Fishers use savoury flavouring in their gins. Salt won’t get through the distillation process but the oils from the botanicals allow some subtly salty flavours to come through. Fishers also have a small still to experiment with flavours when developing a new gin. The teabags were then infused in a cup of boiled water and we could taste how our particular combination of botanicals worked together. Lemon or pink grapefruit both work with this gin. My personal preference was lemon, as it brought out the citrus in the gin a little bit more. Is it worth the money?

After making the tea we were invited to a tasting. There were three gins on offer: Fishers original, Fishers Fifty (which is stronger, having an ABV of 50%) and Fishers Smoked. To garnish Fishers Gin, I tried a classic slice of lemon and a wedge of pink grapefruit. For me, the lemon brought out the citrus in this gin and just gave it the edge over the grapefruit. Distilled overlooking Aldeburgh's iconic shingle beach, and handcrafted using only the finest selection of locally foraged wild herbs and coastal botanicals, Fishers Gin uniquely captures the distinctive character of the North Sea and the Suffolk salt marshes. Juniper is the flavour that defines gin as gin, so that was an essential. Then we experimented with various quantities of the botanicals used in Fishers gin to create a unique tea. Each ingredient was crushed using a dinky pestle and mortar to extract the oils and hence maximise the flavours. The Distillery is open for pre-booked tours and tastings throughout the year. You will learn how Fishers Gin is made, have a go at making your own botanical tea, and sample their unique gin flavours first-hand, including the UK's first-ever London Dry Smoked Gin.

When I drank it

Like generations who lived off the land before us, we work sustainably with the bounty of Suffolk's coastline. The many miles of beach, marshes and fertile pastures have been carved, shaped and made mineral-rich by the elements. Although the sea can be harsh and unforgiving, this land around the coast is lush and fertile, home to a multitude of botanical rarities, and a haven of delicate ecosystems. It is home to nightjars, kingfishers, otters and a huge array of protected wildlife.