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Newcastle Gin Company granted license to begin distilling in city centre

Newcastle Gin Company, owned by North East leisure operators The Vaulkhard Group, has been granted a license to legally begin to distil gin in the city centre.

Receiving receipt of its full compounders and rectifier’s license, plus its bonding trading facility license from HMRC, the company can now put the city’s only working in-house gin still to work at Bealim House bar.

Harry Vaulkhard, Director of Vaulkhard Group and Newcastle Gin Company, said: “The application process has been incredibly lengthy and challenging which I believe is largely due to a spike in applications for craft distiller licenses across the UK.

“Distilling gin used to just be a hobby of mine until we opened Bealim House and decided to install an 8ft copper gin still to be able to create and distill our own brand of gin right here in Newcastle. I went to Edinburgh to learn how to distill commercially while we were waiting for our applications to be processed.

“The idea was to offer our customers something a bit different to other popular ‘gin bars’. Instead of simply compounding gin we wanted to create our own unique taste and brand of gin, as well as providing a visual and unusual talking point within the venue.”

The 400 litre custom-built gin still is encased behind bullet proof glass and has a specially constructed bonded warehouse in the basement for the back of house distillery.

“Although we have had a working gin still on site since opening, we were required by HMRC to show not only a credible business plan but satisfactory distilling plant and processes, safety to the public as well as safeguarding public revenue,” he added.

“We have seen increasing demand to produce Newcastle Gin which has been challenging for Durham Distillery however now that we can distil on site, we will aim to produce up to 400 litres a week which will allow us to sell the product to the public and other leisure outlets.”

Newcastle Gin will also be available to buy by the bottle in a number of Vaulkhard Group’s other venues including Barluga on Grey Street and Morpeth, and Perdu.

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