Win Christmas gin gift set for you and your friends from new Wearside distillery

A Wearside distillery which helped produce sanitiser for the NHS in the first lockdown is now bottling Christmas with its new festive gin sets.
Scott Wilson-Laing with the WL Distillery festive ginsScott Wilson-Laing with the WL Distillery festive gins
Scott Wilson-Laing with the WL Distillery festive gins

WL Distillery in South Hetton is an independent producer of hand-crafted premium spirits, with a focus on the distillation of small batch unique gins. They’ve released their Christmas gin which is set to be just the tonic on cold nights – and we’ve got four gift sets to give away for you and three friends.

The limited-edition festive line of Christmas Citrus and Festive Flavour is available for pre-order from Thursday, November 12 from their online shop, www.wldistillery.com.

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The Christmas Citrus gin has zingy and zesty clementine notes, and Festive Flavour has flavours of baked apple and cinnamon. The gift sets come in packs of two, each in a Christmas-shaped bottle and are priced £12.99 for a pack of two 40ml bottles. It follows the release of the distillery’s 1st edition gin.

There's two variations: Christmas Citrus and Festive FlavourThere's two variations: Christmas Citrus and Festive Flavour
There's two variations: Christmas Citrus and Festive Flavour

Sunderland-born founder, Scott Wilson-Laing established the WL Distillery last year after sampling European and Mediterranean flavours while volunteering as an archaeologist overseas and wanting to replicate a regional taste back home.

Scott said: “In the North East, we are blessed to be surrounded by so much culture and tradition, and we infuse this into our practices as a business and as a gin distillery.

“Our flavours are strongly inspired by the Great British garden. I would spend my summers in my Grandad’s garden, picking and eating fruit and basking in the sun, they are such great memories and I wanted to incorporate that nostalgia and those autumnal flavours, including

blackberries, pears and apples into the gin.”

WL Distillery founder Scott Wilson-LaingWL Distillery founder Scott Wilson-Laing
WL Distillery founder Scott Wilson-Laing
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Before the distillation begins the botanicals are added by hand to the copper still along with a mixture of grain neutral spirit and water. The botanicals are then rested in the spirit and water to allow the flavours to infuse. Each bottle is then filled and labelled by hand.

Scott, who paused planned production earlier in the year and switched to the production of sanitiser for the local NHS and charitable groups, has been delighted by the response to the 1st Edition gin.

He said: “We were fortunate to have a successful crowdfunding campaign to initially set up the business and we’ve had great support ever since. I’m delighted to have the production line running again and feedback to the 1st Edition Gin has been excellent.

"With the current trading environment, we have refocussed our strategy to solely focus on the consumer market at the moment, rather than a mix of trade and consumers. With the profile raising and importance of customers to Shop Local, it would be amazing if the region can get

behind our new line.”

Win

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We have four gift sets of Christmas gin to give away for you and three friends. To be in with a chance of winning, answer this question: where in Durham is the WL Distillery? Email your answer, name, address and DOB to [email protected] Entrants must be 18+and proof of age will be required. Closing date: November 27. Packs will be posted by December 14. Usual JPI Media competition rules apply.

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