Chris Marshall from Snowdonia Distillery is stood next to us. He points towards Conwy castle and we follow his hand movement as he sweeps across the valley to the right and says. “Just where the river goes out of sight behind that hill is where the distillery is nestled.” This is just one area of Snowdonia Chris forages botanicals from.

After our early morning wake up, we head back off the hills toward the outskirts of Conwy where the Snowdonia distillery is based. They are housed in a newly converted barn. Inside it, two copper stills stand proud. One is brand new catching the reflections of the room all around, while the other is much more traditional with a mediterranean look to it. Chris informs us, “These stills are built purposefully for our slower distilling process.” The slower process is really important to how they produce gin. He explains “Our key ingredient is time. Our process is much slower than other distilleries, it spans weeks instead of hours.” This length in time gives the macerated botanicals longer to release flavours and the slow distillation allows the all the subtle notes to be captured.

In order to sustainably continue to use local juniper Chris has now acquired land near the distillery to grow his own, cuttings have been taken from the wild juniper on the side of Snowdon and they will be planted in the spring. He explained, “I don’t believe in creating a product that just tastes amazing if it can’t be done over the longer term, our product is directly related to the environment so we have to start thinking about how we look after our surroundings.”