Nature’s brew - couple open their own eco-distillery

The husband and wife team opened their eco-distillery in October last year offering a range of botanical spirits. Based in the heart of the Wyre Forest, they take inspiration from the natural environment and work closely with local suppliers.

Both Chris and Aster have many years of experience working in the brewing and distilling industry. Chris is a fifth generation brewer of the famous Sadler family, heralded for its craft brewing and distillation in the Black Country.

His lineage inspired him to restart his historic family business, Sadler’s Brewing Co, in 2004, and under his direction it became a thriving craft brewery, supplying bars, restaurants and shops across the country with its award-winning beers

Both Aster and Chris stepped away from Sadler’s to realise a shared desire to launch a wholly sustainable spirits’ brand.

The couple have combined their knowledge of plants and distilling to create Wildjac Homegrown Distillery, based on the outskirts of Bewdley.

“I’m the herbalist and Chris is the alchemist,” says keen gardener Aster, who grows a range of herbs at home including lemon balm, thyme, lemon thyme and rosemary. “I’m interested in different herbs and their benefits. Lemon balm is calming and relaxing. You make make a tea or use it to flavour a drink. We use it in our dry gin.”

They also source ingredients from producers on their doorstep including Augernik Fruit Farm in Hopton Wafers.

“We like to follow the seasons with our different gins such as apple and elderberry in the autumn and citrus and lemon thyme in the summer. For winter we have damson and raspberry with autumn raspberries. A lot of people make damson or sloe gin but you need to add a lot of sugar. The nice thing about raspberries is that they act like a natural sweetener. Chris likes to experiment so he’s always trying different things. We’re experiementing with a walnut liqueur at the moment,” explains Aster.

Their range of gins, vodka and rum are distilled on site within Prudence, a 500-litre G-still from Poland, using traditional techniques and the latest technology to improve efficiency and to reduce the carbon footprint.

“Prudence was one of the Severn Trow cargo boats that sailed botanicals and spices into Bewdley in the early 19th century. We thought it was a nice name to call her. Distillation takes 24 hours and we distil a few times every week. It’s very much about small batch, high quality production. We are looking for what we call the heart of the spirit,” says Chris.

Looking after the environment is very important to the couple who are committed to sustainable practices. All of their spirits are hand-bottled in post-consumer recycled glass bottles featuring recycled labels, FSC certified wood stoppers and biodegradable closures.

Customers can also purchase spirits in recyclable pouches called JacPacs and refill their own bottles at home. Each bottle also comes with a book of wildflower seedsticks to encourage people to support their local habitat.

Wildjac is also part of the 1% For The Planet programme and donates one per cent of all sales revenue back to charities and organisations including Wyre Community Land Trust, the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust and Trees for Cities.

“We take our responsibility to the environment very seriously. We want to support local businesses and we want to support charities that are helping our planet,” says Aster.

The spirits, which are also bottled on site, have been catching the eye of industry experts and earlier this year Wildjac’s Honey Spiced Rum, which includes Worcestershire honey, earned the coveted Rum and Cachaca Masters 2021 Gold Award from The Spirits Business.

Wildjac has also received national acclaim from the International Wine and Spirits competition (IWSC) with a hat-trick of prestigious awards for its Damson and Raspberry Gin (Silver), Natural Dry Gin (Bronze) and Fresh Citrus Vodka (Bronze).

Demand for their eco-conscious products has been so high that they expanded into an additional 8,000 sq ft of business space in Kidderminster just nine months after launching the business. During the summer, Wildjac also sponsored Nature Valley’s Gone Wild Festival hosted by Bear Grylls.

“It was a family friendly festival and it was all about taking the time to be in nature. We were the sole spirit supplier and 4,000 sampled our products,” says Chris.

They have also opened a gin school at their Bewdley base offering tasting sessions and also masterclasses that allow people to broaden their gin knowledge and craft and distil their own recipe.

“Looking back on our first year, I don’t think we could have hoped for much more. We’ve grown from nothing, we’ve won awards and we’ve made some money for charity,” says Chris.

See wildjac.co.uk