Best UK Newcomer 2010: Sipsmith distillers, eccentric makers of London's 1st new gin in nearly 200 yrs
on 18/10/10 at 9:19 am
Spirits
Jared Brown, Stamford Goldsworthy and Fairfax Hall photographed at the Sipsmith distillery, London. Photograph: Levon Biss
There’s something of the mad scientist’s laboratory about Sipsmith’s HQ. It’s a garage, basically, on a suburban west London street, and looks like a cross between Dr Frankenstein’s workshop and a crystal meth lab. Or how a crystal meth lab might have looked had they existed in Victorian times, because dominating the single room is a beautiful, hissing, copper still.
And then there are the proprietors, whose names suggest that they too have stepped out of the 19th century; Stamford Galsworthy and Fairfax Hall, and soft-spoken master distiller Jared Brown, from New Orleans, who has created spirits all over the world.
