Farm Diversity editor Victoria Galligan asked James Chase, Director of Chase Distillery, about how the farm diversified from a potato farm to a popular gin destination…

Could you explain a bit about the history of the distillery – when was it set up, and why?

Chase is a family-run distillery producing vodkas and gins made entirely from scratch. 

Black Cow is the only vodka made entirely from grass-grazed cows milk, which results in an exceptionally smooth vodka with a unique creamy character. Our Pure Milk Vodka™ is made at The Black Cow Distillery, located right in the heart of Childhay Manor organic farm, a 13th-century Manor set in the beautiful rolling countryside of West Dorset on the coast of South West England.

Dairy farmer Jason Barber who together with Paul Archard started Black Cow in 2012, recognised the potential in what was left over from the milk after making cheese. Inspired by tales of Mongolian conquests in more ways than one, the journey to producing the world’s smoothest vodka began.

Two Herefordshire fruit farmers have launched a new drinks brand, Penrhos Spirits, with the release of two hand-crafted gins that celebrate their farming and fruit-growing heritage. The two families have been farming at Penrhos near Kington, Herefordshire, for generations and so it was only natural to name the new brand in its honour.

Lifelong friends, Charles Turner and Richard Williams, had been looking to work on a new diversification project together and with a love of gin themselves the two set out to create a truly authentic gin using traditional copper pot distillation. 

Both families are passionate about the idyllic Herefordshire countryside and wanted to create a gin that reflected the land and environment that surrounds them. Each of their recipes focuses on sourcing from their own farms, producing an essence of this beautiful countryside.

Located 20 miles north of Dundee, Ogilvy Vodka promises an unforgettable ‘field to bottle’ experience that will take in the sights and sounds of both a working potato farm and working vodka distillery.

Visitors will then take an immersive, step-by-step walk-through of the distilling process and a guided tasting of the distillery’s award-winning single estate potato vodka in the attraction’s boutique tasting room.

Housed in a converted stone barn, the visitor centre is a bright, modern and welcoming space, featuring nods to the distillery’s zero waste ethos including ‘tattie box’ wall cladding and recycled Ogilvy Vodka bottles as eye-catching light fittings.