The best for the world, by being the world’s best

Jamie lends his considerable insight into explaining how we intend to produce the world’s finest spirits.

After over a decade of creative distillation, I now find myself in the most exciting chapter of my career, working alongside the spectacular team at Ellers Farm in the heart of North Yorkshire. Still in its infancy, what attracted me to building a state-of-the-art distillery was not just the promise of the facilities needed to deliver a superior quality product, but also the pledge to do so in a way that gives back to the beautiful planet our ingredients come from.

From day one, Ellers Farm is committed to being climate positive. We’ve started as we mean to go on, re-investing into our planet by already planting over 600 trees. With this in mind, my personal challenge as Master Distiller is to embark on this sustainable mission whilst still creating the best spirits I possibly can. It’s not enough for our bottles to be “amazing” or “brilliant”, I am pursuing sustainable perfection.

My story

Having had the opportunity to create hundreds of different spirit recipes throughout my career, going into millions of bottles and countless eager hands, I have been privileged enough to have my hard work recognised by the most prestigious drinks awards in the world. With over 200 national and international awards under my belt, including double Gold Spirits Award’s and Best in the World at the San Francisco Wine & Spirits Awards (affectionately coined the “Oscars of Booze”), I’ve gained the confidence to know that the way I do things is the right way.

What’s my secret?

People often ask me, “What’s your secret?”. Well, it’s actually quite simple – all it takes is the following four foundations working in cohesion to create the world class spirits I’m known for:

State-of-the-art equipment

Throughout my career, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to work with some truly remarkable equipment, and at Ellers Farm, that’s no different. Consistency is key for our products, so we’ve kitted out our state-of-the-art distillery with equipment from the best manufacturers around, ensuring that the millionth bottle is just as flawless as the first.

The process

Next, getting the distillation process right is vital. There are many variants and qualities of spirit produced in huge plants, which can make a decent liquid by diluting them or adding flavours. However, if you have access to copper equipment, you can improve the spirit you buy in. By purifying the liquid through a re-rectification process, the undesirable sulphides bind to the copper and, in turn, are removed from the product.

The level above that, and what we will be doing, is making the spirit from scratch. Whether sourced from the planting we will be doing on the farm or through a trusted British supply chain I have built up over the years, we will ferment, strip the alcohol, rectify to 96%+ purity, polish, filter, rest and, finally, blend with water from a borehole on our farm. Doing it this way gives me ultimate control over every element of the final liquid, with full traceability back to the source.

The final piece of the puzzle is my obsessive attention to detail and care taken throughout every part of the process. At least every 20 minutes, I’ll check the liquid, tasting and monitoring to tweak it so the spirit is absolutely perfect. My meticulous approach to the spirit process pays off, with one of my previous spirits that I blended into vodka going on to be named best in the world – an award I am aiming to achieve again at Ellers Farm.

Sourcing the best ingredients

The first two steps give us a great starting point, but a spirit is only as good as the ingredients that go into it. In order to make the best possible liquid we can, sourcing the perfect ingredients without compromising can be a stressful task. For instance, one of the key ingredients in gin is juniper, a plant not natively found in the UK. Of course, we could grow our own juniper or use a UK supplier, but due to the unfavourable British climate, it doesn’t offer the level of perfection we strive for.

After looking all over the world, I found that the high oil content of Macedonian juniper gives the best flavour, and my supplier has a 30+ year relationship with a local grower there allows me to ensure I have the ingredient traceability and quality I require. The only downside to importing ingredients is the increased carbon footprint compared to buying from the UK. Nevertheless, if we were to compromise on our product quality, it would set off a chain of events that would affect our ability to support global agricultural development and, ultimately, the resources we have available to invest back into the environment.

Experimentation

I’ll hold my hands up – when I was a child, I never told my schoolteachers: “I want to be a Master Distiller when I grow up!”, but I’ve always had a passion for food and flavour. So, when the opportunity was sent my way at a previous business, I rose to the challenge and kept things going. Coming from a position of little experience at the time, I naturally adopted an unorthodox approach that enabled me to experiment with unique methods that an established or trained distiller would not have used.

From ‘smoking’ vodka, to making gin from potatoes, or even turning marmalade into vodka, I have a distinct combination of creativity and naivety that inspires new recipe creation and experimentation. At Ellers Farm, I have boundless opportunity to create new exciting products under our product development programme, using unusual and local ingredients that will form part of our small batch spirit range, which will be available at our on-site shop at the distillery’s visitor centre.

Exciting times are ahead for Ellers Farm Distillery. Regardless of whether it’s vodka, gin, whiskey, calvados, or a bottle of liqueur, the mantra stays the same - If it’s not as perfect as it can be, improve it. Whatever it takes from the planet, give more back.