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IN THE WORDS BY CHARLOTTE GRIFFITHS
WE MEET THE DUO BEHIND THE CAMBRIDGE DISTILLERY, THE LOCAL GIN- MAKERS PUTTING OUR CITY ON THE MAP
A fter a conversation in a field while walking their much-loved Labrador Darcy, Lucy and Will Lowe decided to quit their jobs, start making gin, and set themselves up as the Cambridge Distillery. At the time Will was working in London as an educator in the wine trade, while Lucy worked at the Judge Business School in central Cambridge: but despite their 9 to 5 careers the couple were confident they’d eventually get round to creating a business for themselves. “We always knew that we’d end up powered by our interests,” says Lucy. “Ever since I was little I’d wanted to do my own thing: I always hugely disliked routine, and didn’t want to be at a desk from 9 to 5, and I loved the opportunities and freedom offered by working for yourself.” The couple started out by distilling gin in their living room in Histon, which certainly was one of the UK’s smallest distilleries if not the tiniest (a shed in Scotland also claims to be in the running for the crown). The lack of available space played a part in their choice to approach distillation via vacuum, rather than large, hot, splashy copper stills, but it also gave Will and Lucy fine control over the process, and enabled them to extract
maximum flavour from even the most delicate of botanicals. Each is distilled individually, in volumes of less than two litres at a time, to ensure that the freshest possible characteristics of the plant, flower, spice, fruit or berry – or whatever – are preserved: it’s not the fastest route to creating gin, but it does guarantee something rather special at the end of the process. “We were working every evening and weekend at the start: it was exciting – it was this little secret we had,” Lucy says. That same year, the couple presented Will’s father with his very own gin as a birthday gift, created specifically to challenge his long-standing complaint that no gin was dry enough. The couple gave their creation the fitting name “Professor Lowe’s Raspingly Dry Gin” – and it was this spirit which caused the moment when the Lowes realised they’d struck on something special. “Will’s uncle was staying with Will’s father, and they’d run out of the gin we’d made,” Lucy explained. “They offered Will’s uncle any one of all the many other gins in the cupboard but in the absence of ours he refused, choosing a beer instead: that’s when we knew...” First came the tailored gins: created (as the ‘Raspingly Dry Gin’ was) specifically for individuals to meet their unique tastes and requirements. Tailoring clients
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