Andy & Zoe : Shed One Distillery – This is Ulverston

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TIU: Hi Andy and Zoe – it’s new for me to interview a couple together for this project and you’ve both got different lives, different stories. So it’s probably a good idea that we start with how you came together as a couple?

Z: Andrew found me in South Korea. I went to Japan for a year and I ended up staying far longer. I bumped into Andrew seven years after, when I was living in South Korea and he always says he found me when I was weak and said, “Come back to Britain” I didn’t want to come back. And that was the October. Everything happens to us in October. We met in the October for two little meetings over a period of a week. I then came back here. He lived in Dalton, so I came back to say hello and saw him for two days over the Christmas period. I then moved back in the March, moved in with him in the June, and we got married the following May.

TIU: Oh it’s a big love story? I like to hear about those kind of fated meetings – where you are called to connect with someone.

A: We have often wondered what fate would have done to bring us together if it hadn’t been for that one extreme chance meeting. Which was very, very strange. I’d gone over to South Korea with Shakespeare’s Globe and we were doing a play at the National Theatre for a Shakespeare Festival. They asked the company if anybody would like to go over early. About twelve of us put our hands up because we thought when are we ever going to be in South Korea again? So that was all sorted for the end of the season of the Globe. I did a little bit of research about food and things. We landed in South Korea in the evening. I went to a place just around the corner from the hotel, got something to eat, got up the following day, went to a part of Seoul that I knew would be English speaking. It was the first time landing off a plane that I had absolutely no idea what squiggles and dots and lines and triangles and everything meant. The rest of the group had got themselves together to go and find something to eat and I said, I’ve just been to a restaurant street – we’ll go there. Great. So we all went on the Underground – which was an experience, but we managed to get off it at the right place and then I took them down the restaurant street. They kept looking in tanks of things that were swimming around with me trying to explain that the food is really nice and its basically a vegetarian diet. You have to add stuff to it. But all I got was “No, I’m not eating that” – all the way down. And there was a set of steps at the end that went back up to the main drive and there was a fellow leaning up against the railing just having a cigarette. And as we walked up to him, he looked at me and said. “Would you like to come in for a drink?” Because he’d seen what had happened in the previous ten minutes. So that, as it turned out, was Ted and it was Ted’s Bar and we went in there and sat there to have a drink. And then… Zoe walks in.

Z: I lived three hundred and fifty miles away in Busan and was not going to be in Seoul that weekend at all. A Korean friend had been in touch saying we should go out for dinner and an English friend also suggested I go up. So I did. We had something to eat and then we went to Ted’s Bar. Ted is a Korean guy and we used to go to his place because it was the nicest bar in the area. A lot of it was very militarised, a lot of Americans. So this was kind of a little refuge away from all of that. So we walk in and the English guy turns around and sees Andy’s group sitting there and he knows them all because he’s meant to be meeting them in three days’ time.

A: We haven’t been in touch with him. Hadn’t arranged anything. He just happened to walk in. Same bar, same place.

Z: And the reason why he knew them is because he is an actor / slash playwright as well and the idea is..

A: The idea is in the play we were doing there’s this character that comes on at the end and tells the French princess she’s now the queen. So its a very important line. And we’d have guests who come on and do it during the run and we’d asked this guy if he would do that character? And he said, “yeah, okay, I’ll see you at rehearsal” And then the next time he sees me he walks into this bar completely by chance. And we were all sort of a little bit blown away by it.

TIU : There was something else working for you there…

Z: Oh, definitely. I mean, for Andrew it was going to be the night he was out with two Bond girls and it ended up being the night that he met his wife!

A: It was only going to be a very friendly night out with two Bond Girls because it was Gemma Arterton and Oona Chaplin and it had been throughout the season in the play.

Z: And Michelle Terry, who had became the Artistic Director of the Globe Theatre. Amazing actress, incredible woman. It was quite the night. So it was handed to me to find them something that they could bear to eat.

A: Yeah, it was very strange, trying to persuade a load of people to eat and they couldn’t because they just hadn’t done any research. I mean, I’d had a very interesting time in a Korean restaurant in London, that was my introduction to it.

TIU: It’s not a culture that I have had experience of…

Z: It’s fascinating. I went to Japan first and the idea was just to go for a year. I was a special paint finisher. I used to paint murals, marbling, wood grain, tortoiseshell… I worked in private houses, hotels, restaurants. I did a mural at my local hospital at the time, which was Warwick. I was down in Warwickshire. I used to paint barges, Dutch barges that used to go to Europe and things like that. It was brilliant, but I’d always wanted to go to Japan. With the JET Programme you could take a couple of tests, have an interview, and then they would send you somewhere in Japan and you would work as an assistant language teacher in a school or a couple of schools and they asked me where I wanted to go. I really didn’t mind. So I ended up being in a little town where there were I would say six thousand Japanese people and me. And I had fabulous little apartment that was surrounded by rice fields and I would cycle to school every day on my Mamachari, which is a bicycle with a basket on the front. So that was my form of transport. And I absolutely adored it to the point that I rewrote curriculum and I did work at the local education department and I put workshops together for Japanese teachers and English teachers to try and get them to work together better. I was the voice of the English test going out throughout the county. It was just a most amazing time and I had this wonderful eighty year old chap who taught me pottery once a month and it was just incredible. If I’d been in the city, I would have done a year and I would have gone home. But I was in this extraordinary countryside with everything going on and everyone was just so kind. You could only do three years of this programme. So I did those three years and then it was well, what do I do now? I had popped back to the UK and found I didn’t fit in. It was strange, you know, I found the culture shock coming back extraordinary. I found it very difficult. So I was back for a couple of weeks and then I went out again. I arranged a contract in South Korea. So I did some travelling in South Africa parts of Asia, South America, and then I went to South Korea, worked at a university in Busan for three and a half to four years.

A: She moved to a part of Korea where she could get the ferry across to where she used to live in Japan. Any free time – back to Japan!

Z: Korea and Japan are incredibly different places. Again, Britain to Japan, no culture shock. Japan to South Korea. Oh my gosh. Incredible. And then eventually coming back here with and me and Andy getting together, it probably took me two years to finally kind of get it again and settle in. I didn’t know the money.

A: I didn’t know any Japanese or Korean, so when it slipped into conversation, I was immediately lost as to what we were talking about.

Z: I would start sentences in English and you didn’t know where they would end up in the end, which was very strange. And I forgot that people could understand me. Walking around a supermarket with my mother once and I said, “My God, look at that guy. He’s got such a huge head!” And shes like, “He can hear you” And I’m like, “but he can’t understand me!” So I got here because Andrew was in Dalton. He came from Bury.

A: I am originally from Bury. I moved into Manchester, Salford and then progressively moved slightly further north, but managed to stay within the ancient boundary of Lancashire each time. Working as an actor – ninety nine percent of the work was Theatre which meant you did three to six months then a break – lots of contracts and bits and pieces. I got to know your sisters working at Hawkshead. When you’re resting, as they call it or unemployed, I would get a bit of a retail stretch in. So yeah, so that worked quite a few times when I was resting which was great. They were a nice group. They took me under their wing a little bit if they were going out with some friends, I would go and have a drink with them as well. It was a nice introduction to the area. The reason I ended up here was I decided if your working as an actor as long as you don’t mind travelling, you can live anywhere. I knew a lot of people that lived on what they call the M62 Corridor and over the period of about two and a half years, I was looking for somewhere to live. I did a lot of looking around the M62 corridor, I looked over in Scarborough and came looking over here. Lots of people I knew down in London lived in a little shoe box and paid an absolute fortune for it and I didn’t want that. I wanted to be in the nice part of the world, basically. After two and a half years a flat came available over in Dalton and I decided whatever happened, I’m having it. There had been all kind of contracts falling through, there had been problems with properties over the two and half years. And as it turned out I ended up with great neighbours. When I turned up to view the flat, the estate agent, who was five foot one trying to hide a fifteen foot long trike that was outside the property. I was thinking my neighbor’s obviously very handy with the spanners. So it just sort of worked. When Zoe and I got together it just seemed to be a natural thing to to move out, because we wanted a little bit of outside space.

Z: I kept looking at the house on Sunderland Terrace. It had been advertised for like eighteen months, and it was everything that did not tick Andy’s boxes.

A: Yes. Parking. I didn’t want to bend over going through any doors or anything, I would guess I wanted a garage hopefully. But then we decided we would go and have a look at it. We walked through the door took two steps inside, looked at each other and went yeah, this is it.. So that’s where Shed One originated. It was the only house we ever looked at. It had been owned by the same family for fifty four years which was nice actually because they had boarded things up rather than pulled things out. We just unboarded things and got the house breathing again. We had the most lovely neighbour who had been there since the seventies and she’s head of our quality control and taste testing team. On the other side of the ginnel there was another woman, (they had all been widowed all the three women) So they would get together. Our “Giggle in The Ginnel” gin comes from Andy’s 50th birthday because we completely forgot about it, so we put two barbeques at the end of the ginnel, filled it with chairs and tables and sent a message out.

TIU : What brought you to gin?

A: I started looking to do something where I wouldn’t be working away a lot.

Z: My dad died.

A: I started to pay the price because I couldn’t be here.

Z: I spent two years going backwards and forwards when Dad was ill and Andrew was touring then we had the funeral and then Andy immediately had to leave again. It was really hard. As you will know.

TIU: I do. I lost my dad within four years of losing my husband so it was a dark time. I did a lot of work on myself.

Z: Awful. Exactly. Well, it was soon after my dad died, Andy’s mum got ill and then his dad. So we had a three year thing. And so it was. My dad would have absolutely gone bananas over this place. Truly he would have been our screamiest supporter sitting in a corner just proud as punch and telling anybody who would listen. I know that. So that’s what made us decide that Andy couldn’t be doing everything he was doing. It was crazy, it didn’t make any sense. We needed to spend more time together. The first year we were married, we argue about this, but we reckon it was about six weeks we saw each other for the first year. It was about eight weeks for the second… In one respect it very much works because both of us have been very, very independent people.

TIU: I understand. That’s one of my relationship musts. Equal batting from both sides – maintain independence. But your first few years sound extreme.

Z: When we first started the gin and Andy was still here after three months, Gertie, the dog and I kept staring at him going wondering why he was still there. He’d never been here for this long. It was really weird. It was like “Please go away!”

A: In the nicest possible sense!

Z: “Yeah, give us some space!” So anyway, that was it and it was lots of people doing lots of things in sheds. And in between doing his acting, while he was resting, he would do all sorts of jobs. He would porter at the hospital.

A: Theatre by the Lake did Rogue Herries – a community chorus – so there were eight to nine professional actors and then a group of about sixty plus local people. Over the course of the run you got to know everybody around Keswick and it was a really good fun thing to do. One of the girls, I was talking to her dad at the bar, and he asked me what I was doing at that time. I told him I had another contract. Six weeks or so and I’ll be back at the A&E doing portering. He said, “Why don’t you come and work for us? We bottle beer”. They were based up in Cockermouth so they gave me a van and I would get up early on the Monday, drive for van pick up and then drive between Birmingham and the Highlands of Scotland collecting beer and delivering bottles to people that, as Zoe said, had started in sheds and garages and all kinds of things. We ourselves didn’t want to do home brew because we had two fantastic breweries in the town of that point. Stringers were still going and of course, Ulverston Brewing Company.

Z: The original and the best.

A: Gin just sort of popped into there. I was playing Kent in King Lear, at the Rose Theatre, Kingston upon Thames, just on the matinee, and I’d got the company bug, so I’d been given my own dressing room because nobody wanted to be anywhere near me. I was sat in this dressing room feeling rough so I phoned Zoe and we had a little chat and I said, “We’re going to make gin” and she just went, “Right, okay – shall we talk about it at the weekend when you get back?” That was it.

Z: I had done all the sloes, the damsons, all those things at Christmas time, which Andy started getting more interested in. And then we had been playing with a few different botanicals and just doing all that kind of thing. So there had been something clicking away in the background. In this country, you have to have licenses to distil. If we were in France, it could have ended up just being a hobby. But in this country, you can’t distil anything unless you have a license, which is your premises license, your personal license, everything else. So if you’re going to play with it, you might as well try it out as a business. Of course, the background with Andrew and I, Andrew being an actor, and me a special paint finisher, travelling and all that, we both were happy with being self employed. Bizarrely, neither of us have ever really been employed by many other people, you know, we were pretty much self employed.

TIU: When you’re self-employed, it’s hard to go back to being employed by anybody – I find that anyway.

Z: It’s also the fact that you have this sort of thing inside your head that, well, I’ll try something and see how it goes because if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. When perhaps somebody who does have holiday pay and sick pay and all those wonderful things in a pension, is going to think twice before doing something like that.

TIU: It’s the hesitation that makes or breaks it. Faced with an opportunity that involves considerable risk or just staying where you are that feels comfortable. Staying in the same place doing the same things brings the same results mostly. Taking a risk is often the only way to expand.

Z: Yeah, absolutely. It just seemed like at the time – let’s try it. This could be a little business. And then, of course, we got in touch with the bank and we said, “Can we get a loan to get the XY, and Z”? And they said, “No, because you’ve never done this before and so we’re not giving you any money”. So we had about fifteen hundred quid. We bought a little still, a twenty five litre still, a few bottles, some boxes, and the botanicals, all in the seven by seven foot brick garden shed. And we were very lucky with the fire and the environmental and all of that because they were very supportive, which is a postcode lottery. Gin people talk to each other a lot. Distilleries talk to each other a lot. We’re not like the whisky industry, they’re very secretive. Not just with us. We found this out across the country.

A: It’s just tradition because they’ve got their their own secret recipes. So we were talking to Alistair up at Misty Isle, the Isle of Skye, and he was saying that gin distillers all talk to each other.

Z: Whenever we’re going anywhere we always have a couple of extra bottles with us. Stockport Gin, they’ve been here, we’ve been there, we’ve swapped bottles, we chat about what we do, because everyone’s doing something different. I mean, it’s the ideas and the recipes they’re infinite. This is one of the things that keeps your interest, You can say that one day we’re going to get five stills up, five people, give them the same eight botanicals and just leave them to it and you will have five completely different gins come out of that because it just takes one little twist, a little bit more of this than less than that and this and you’ve got something so completely different to something which has the same botanicals in it. Alistair at the Misty Isle, he adores his juniper. He is very juniper heavy and it’s beautiful gin. We would never make gin the same way as as Alistair does. The Stockport guys, the Sky Wave in Oxfordshire – we’re all doing things, so differently, and we all like to chat about it. We had a seven by seven foot shed. We were very lucky with environmental, with the fire people, etc. They were saying, “Now, look, what do the neighbours think? And we were saying, the neighbours want us to open a distillery! It’s really, very simple!” We had our friends and neighbours, like throughout that whole summer sitting in the garden tasting everything.

Z: Yeah, they were concerned about the impact of the business on a residential street, so they went to check with all the neighbours and all the neighbours told us to carry on.

TIU: Well, this is Ulverston. There’s a pub every two steps.

Z: After we decided to do it Andy was with Northern Broadsides doing Merry Wives. It was at that point we started thinking about our very first gin and what we were going to do. I saw somebody in town and they asked about Andrew. I said he’s touring with Northern Broadsides at the moment however, we’re starting a gin distillery. And there there wasn’t even a flicker It was like, “Oh, good, we haven’t got one of those here” And that’s Ulverston. They said “Great, crack on! Tell us when you launch it and that’ll be lovely!” There was never anybody telling us not to. But that was the beauty of the very first gin because Andrew was touring and he’s coming home with his laundry every few weeks. And I’m saying, how’s it going? ie -the play? And of course, each time he’s home, we’re playing with the recipe and making this gin and he’s taking a couple of bottles with him and they’re trying it as well. And then they start to buy it and then he’s coming home and saying, actually, we need to distil five more bottles because they all want a bottle. They were paying for it now at that point.

A: You became the travelling salesman without even thinking about it!

A: It was great with the friends and neighbours in the garden, but the next step is people giving us money.

Z: So by the end of the run, we decided that they’d pretty much paid for the whole R&D. And so our very first gin to remember that because Andrew played the cuckcolded Master Ford in Merry Wives, we called the gin “Cuckold’s Revenge”.

TIU: Right, I see, because they’ve all got very personal stories to them…

A: There’s a little tale behind all of them.

Z: Becky, who played Mistress Ford in Mary Wives, a few months after we started this business, she decided to start her own business. She does a lot of foraging and has a little market garden. She’s actually based in Carnforth, a complete coincidence. It’s incredible. It’s called “Erder Botanicals” and do check her out. Absolutely stunning. So she started that and she actually grows the chillies that go in our “Chilli Fest” gin. So it’s a continuation of the family. And then people say, so what kind of chillies go in your “Chilli Fest” and this is when we say they are the most precious, the most special chillies in the entire world because Becky’s grown them from the seeds from the original plant ever since. The problem is, none of us can remember what chilli it was. So it is literally the Becky Chilli. I just love the fact that from the very beginning, Mistress and Master Ford are still together doing something.

TIU: So, how long have you been here now in this building?

Z: So we started 2016 up at the house and then we got the keys to this place in January 2019. We spent most of the year doing the place up, we put the window in because we knew the view would be amazing. So it makes the room. Absolutely. We put the kitchen in. It was in three sections, which was perfect. We had the warehouse, we had the distillery, but this was an added extra. We hadn’t thought about having a space for people to come. We were just looking for somewhere, which would be bigger and we didn’t want to be on an industrial estate and we didn’t want to be in town, apart from the fact it would just be financially very difficult. So we were in our garden shed and of course it’s shed one because we had two sheds in the garden. The auction mart told us Unit D is up, you know, perhaps you’d like to see it. They told us it’s the old calf shed and we went, ah, okay – Yes!

A: We don’t have to twist the story or anything. It’s one shed to another…

Z: We went four times bigger so we now have a hundred litre still, which is as big as still we’re ever gonna have due to various reasons, including the sustainable and the green side of it, the ecology side, because we’ve always tried to be as ecologically sound as we possibly can within the confines of having a rented space and no outside space. But we’re doing pretty well, I think I think, no, we’re doing very well. We had this space – this extra bit -what can we do with it? We thought well we could maybe have a little bar, not like a pub bar but a little bar and then that kind of lent itself to having people come in for a tour and a tasting. Then we realised that nowhere in Cumbria could you go and make your own spirit. So we thought, why don’t we start a gin school? So that’s why that bench over there is all set up with water and electricity like a little lab. Then it was a case of, well, I’ve got all these vintage afternoon teapots and crockery. Why don’t we start doing a botanical inspired afternoon tea? Because of everything that I do already, this space and not being in town and what we are and who we are and what people see on socials and everything else, is that we’re attracting people who are already interested in what we’re doing. So people know it’s not a cafe. They know it is a distillery that has this extra thing and they can see that, yeah, so I think that’s one of the lovely things about it is that 99% of the people who walk through that door are already up for having a nice time and to enjoy and to be part of something.

A: Just relaxing and enjoying the company you’re with or engaging with the other people that are here as well. It just seems to happen naturally. We’ve had family groups that have been in and they’ve had their itinerary changed by the locals that are in the room.

Z: One particular family came back a week later and they asked us to say thank you to everybody who was there that day because they had the most brilliant week and if they had done what they were going to do it would not have been as good.

TIU: There’s nothing to beat a local recommendation.

Z: Absolutely. There’s no getting around the fact that this is a special place, not just for us and and it really is lovely to have created that.

TIU: I’ve never been in for any other reason other than to pick up the charity gin donation with my sister but I will be. And I will be recommending to my friends from around the country and across the pond as we get quite a few far flung visitors. I’ll be sending people here.

Z: We are thankful for every bit of support we can possibly get as you probably understand, it’s incredibly hard out there. It’s incredibly hard. It’s never been easy. I mean, we started a business when everything was difficult anyway, and it gets more and more difficult year on year. We watch people that we know lose their businesses and we watch distilleries close every single week. Some of them we’re incredibly surprised by and we think if they can’t do it, you know, what on earth is going to happen? We have some very, very dark times. Not everybody’s drinking here. I mean we don’t make no alcohol gin, we don’t agree with it because we think most of it’s a bit of a rip off. But we do non alcoholic things, which we know are lovely and tasty and people will enjoy in order for them to be able to participate. So if you’re not drinking, you’re not missing out. It’s the same thing with doing the afternoon teas. Just because you can’t eat, just because you’re gluten free doesn’t mean you have to be given a carrot and sit in a corner.

TIU: I’m usually in the carrot corner.

Z: That’s the lovely thing when somebody does come in and tell us they can’t eat gluten or dairy. We say it’s fine. You’re covered.

TIU: It’s because of the reaction from people as well. A person with allergies can feel uncomfortable.

Z: Absolutely. That’s it. Like you’re a problem. I totally understand. Andrew and I have our health issues, you know, and there have been times where it’s been diet, health, etc, and people look at you as if you’re a bit of a third class citizen.

TIU: Or you’re making it up – its something that they can’t see… It’s very subjective isn’t it?

A: Even when they can see something, people think you’re making it up.

Z: And that’s one of the things I think when you come into this space, we are very aware through through friends, through family, through our own personal issues. We don’t want anyone to feel that way. The whole place, you can get around it, mobility wise. You can get round this space. We only have one loo, but we only have one loo because we only wanted one that was accessible to every single person who comes through.

TIU: If you were in town, you might not be that easily accessible. I have fibromyalgia, bowel disease and polymyalgia rheumatica diagnoses, (as well as these crazy allergies that have started up in the past year), and you can’t see much sign of them outwardly. You do feel like a burden sometimes. With the allergens I use a lot of substitutes and everything tastes different, but it’s just a way of living. It’s a way of coping to find a different way. My diet is basically oatmeal, eggs, fruit, veg, fish and very clean meat. With dairy replaced by goats milk and feta cheese. It’s tastes good but it’s fuel now not primarily comfort.

Z: But you’ve got to get some joy in it otherwise it’s missing out on things. I miss out on a lot of things. I’ve got degenerative scoliosis. It’s a twenty four hour pain and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it. I’ve sort of gone through everything that they possibly can and now it’s just a case of watching it degenerate. Now that then means that a lot of the time this is my life, because once I finish here, I can’t go out. I can’t go and do anything else because I’m done, you know.

TIU: I do know. It’s pick your activity, day by day.

Z: I was talking to a friend yesterday saying I don’t care. I’m just going to turn into Elizabeth Barrett Browning and get a bath chair write poetry, I think, and a great big Victorian skirt. I am incredibly aware of how important it is for people who who can’t get out – for when they are out – to enjoy and have the most special time they possibly can.

TIU: I think that’s very much needed in this world.

Z: Most definitely. My world’s getting smaller and smaller by the week. Andrew, of course, goes to Christie’s every six months because he’s got a genetic condition which gives him skin cancer constantly.

A: So that’s one of the gifts of it, yeah.

Z: As well as your skeleton that’s a completely different shape to everybody else’s.

A: Dozens of operations on my jaw and things…

Z: You’re getting less ears…

A: We decided a while ago that there’s a basement of a hospital in Manchester, with a jar containing a very small angry version of me. And every now and again they take a bit off me and add it to that angry one…

Z: And they’ve been doing it ever since you were eight years old… So, as I say, those things about us do mean that we think more about other people and what people are going through. You naturally do that because you think, well, what would make me happier? What would be comfortable for me? What do I want if I’m going out? So that’s what we’re trying to give other people. And yeah, I mean, we moan about people too.

TIU: Not everybody is for everybody. We could all try harder with compassion.

A: If you have to deal with the general populace then there are going to be people who just make it that bit more hard work.

TIU: I set the bar on awesome very high these days because it feels so rare. I think some people feel I am a bit OTT but if you had to step in my shoes you would realise where my gratitude comes from!

Z: One of the beauties about this place is that people come here knowing what it is, they’ve been told about it by somebody else which is also lovely. And so they’re walking through the door intending to have a nice time but occasionally we do get somebody who walks through the door who then I will say to myself that my mission today is that Mr. Grump is going to smile and at least have one giggle before he walks out. And then suddenly it will happen.

A: There are three ladies who came last week and one of the ladies had been before and she was just having the best time. She’s a good customer as she’d told her friends quite a lot about the place. Her just enjoying it – her friends enjoying it. Every time I went past she just smiled.

TIU: I don’t understand how anyone as a customer can enter a place without some attempt at pleasantry. However the business is offering a good or service and so it’s up to them in my view to raise the vibration too.

A: It’s a two way street, isn’t it? Engage with people and make sure that they know they can relax.

Z: I think that’s an interesting thing. We can probably say on like one and a half hands the people who stand out – who were very hard work or something more. But the fact that we can say count them on only one hand – maybe push it to two – over the last five years is pretty amazing. I think engagement is important because we find out about people’s lives. You know, somebody will sit here and there is natural chat. And so whether they’re here for an afternoon tea, whether they’re here for a distillery tour, or if they’re making their own spirit, that’s four hours. And what you learn about people, how are you doing? what are you doing? So why are you here? Then where have you come from? And you find out actually there has been a death in the family or they’ve had a horrible time. They’re just getting over some illness and then you think yeah, I get it, you know, I get why you’re feeling miserable. Well, here’s the place where you can just drop all that for a couple of hours.

TIU: There is something underlying with everybody.

Z: Nowadays there is so much going on. And I think a lot of us feel quite frightened by a lot of things that are going on. So on top of your own life and the norm of what you deal with on a day to day basis, you’re looking outside and going, what on earth is all of this as well? And so there is an instability and I’ve certainly felt it that I can’t kind of get my feet grounded. I’m constantly feeling that I’m being pushed off kilter in one way or another, and that’s incredibly difficult to live with on a daily basis. We say that this is our refuge from the world. And however long you’re here, please share it as your refuge as well. And you see people just relax. And that’s brilliant. So the gin, (and we haven’t hardly even talked about the gin side of things), but if it wasn’t for the gin, we wouldn’t have all this and if we didn’t have all this, then what would we be doing?

You can find Shed One Distillery here and at The Old Calf Shed, North Lonsdale Road, Ulverston, Cumbria LA12 9AU.