From the off, it was always going to be a gin destination and visitor attraction to help showcase their home in southwest Scotland. Visitors can tour the distillery, experience a variety of events, or even go on a foraging tour of the hills and coast of the area. The lovely folk at Crafty Distillery are definitely not suggesting anybody should drink hard liquor 24/7. However, they have created a vodka that’s great at any time of the day…

The gin tends not to be distilled straight away and Crafty always has some GNS ready for when gin distillation is required. Developing Hills & Harbour GIn The tour offers a strong focus on touch, smell and taste to help transport you into the wondrous journey of transforming malted barley into scotch whisky. Your expert guide will carefully explain each stage as you explore our pioneering approach. Experience how our 100% Scottish barley, unique yeast and innovative processes have elevated the possibilities of whisky flavour to create our unique new make spirit.In 2015 the planning permission for a piece of land in his hometown of Newton Stewart was made. This was finally approved in 2016, before the first bottle was distilled in June 2017. With tonic, the greenness really comes to the fore – and the texture remains sublime. You really get the creaminess of that wheat spirit. As you add more tonic, Hills & Harbour becomes more citrus in flavour with the seaweed dialling down. As a London Dry Gin, all the botanicals are added during the distillation process with “no essences, sweeteners or nonsense added post-production.” Craig Rankin explains. He was getting ahead of himself at this point, though, as he didn’t yet have a distillery, nor even the land on which to build one. Before too long, though, that was sorted. Graham’s dad, Billy, is a builder, and a pretty good one at that. He’d spotted a piece of land offering uninterrupted views of the Galloway Hills that just so happened to fit into the budget. It was theirs for the taking, so they set to work designing a distillery, making sure it was one that didn’t just respect the land, but took full advantage of it, offering gorgeous, never-ending countryside views.

This gin was a bit of a find…and we’re delighted we’ve found it! We can see where the hills and harbour in the names comes from; a really novel set of botanicals that make Hills & Harbour stand out. Crafty recommends a slice of fresh mango as a garnish to complement the tropical notes already present, but I found it also works well with orange and grapefruit. For all gin fans out there, a very warm welcome awaits you at Crafty Distillery in gorgeous Galloway to join us on a unique tour for your taste buds, where we’ll also share the secrets of our process. Headquartered in Hong Kong, Harbour & Hills Financial Services Limited emerged as a fintech company in 2010. Harbour & Hills is a registered money services operator, licensed by the HK Customs and Excise Department.So we can craft something that really lives up to the craft promise,” Graham told me. “Whatever Crafty was going to be, it was going to be created using our own spirit and to tap into the botanicals of our region.”

There’s a good reason why Crafty Distillery is awarded 5 stars on Trip Advisor and Visit Scotland. Come and see for yourself and book a one-of-a-kind tour. Given that it’s considerably more effort to make your own base spirit, and the fact the spirit is supposed to be tasteless, why bother? Hand-blown from 100% recycled glass and individually unique, they have a subtle blue/green tint that evokes the forests and coastline of our region. Each glass proudly carries the Hills & Harbour Gin roundel branding . Putting the graft in craft,” is the Crafty Distillery slogan. And as one of only seven Scottish gin distillers (at the time of writing) to make their own base spirit, there’s definitely something in that. According to The Gin Cooperative, there are over 140 Scottish gin brands, meaning Craft Distillery is one of only 5% of Scottish brands who do this. The others buy this in and focus on the rectification process. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this and hundreds of amazing gins are made in this way.

Legally speaking, the ethanol is supposed to have been distilled to a minimum of 96%, which wipes out most traces of the matter from which it’s made. Still, there’s something about craft vodka that seems to betray this. At the smaller end of the scale, it always seems to carry a trace of the agricultural origin it is derived from. Be it grain, potato, sugar cane or wheat - it’ll cary through onto the final flavour and texture and no grain to glass spirit ever truly has a neutral base. Therein lies the magic of them, the added texture. When you drink a gin that has been made upon an in-house base, you almost always know straight away. There’s an undercurrent that murmurs gently beneath the surface. We, as nerds, will always prefer the added dimension it gives and love exploring how much the distiller has allow it to permeate into the end product, or neutralised it as best they can. That brings us to the end of the Gin Escape. I’m still at my desk in Norfolk and haven’t touched a drop of gin, but Taylor’s engaging and immersive talk through the experience had me feeling a brisk Scottish breeze through my hair, salty sea air in my nostrils, and the tingle of a cold, piney gin and tonic on my lips. For Taylor, building a connection to the landscape is almost as important a part of the tour as the gin itself. “We grew up in this region and we are really proud of it. We know it is a hidden gem,” he says. “We are too connected to our devices and to the ‘instant’ these days. It is a reality of how we all work … Just being outside and having a bit of fun and connecting with where things come from – that was resonating before, but even more so now.” To taste, this is one of the smoothest gins we’ve had. We all agreed that there was very little lingering aftertaste on the palate and definitely got what we thought was the pine needles (if you’ve ever walked in a forest in the SW of Scotland you’ll be familiar with the lovely scent). We thought they worked really well in the gin, and gave it a distinctive feel. It’s really pleasing that team and Hills & Harbour make their own base spirit too. This’ll likely be a factor in putting Hills & Harbour gin at a more premium price point, but we think it shows the care and skill that’s gone into making this quality gin. Seaweed has been adopted by a number of British gin brands to add an umami tang to their gins. However, Taylor says he and his distillery manager Craig Rankin, a trained chef with high-end restaurant experience, view its savoury salinity in another way – through the lens of salt’s flavour-enhancing effect on the tastebuds. “It is amazing to me how many gins don’t use this science,” Taylor says. “It is really important to have that savoury quality going on because it enhances the flavour of the gin … if you don’t season something, you cannot open up the palate.” Graham Taylor, founder of Crafty Distillery. Credit: Crafty Distillery

This behind-the-scenes look at its gin making exemplifies what Crafty Distillery has been about since opening in 2017: namely, craft. It is one of only around a dozen gin distilleries in Scotland and England to make its own base spirit, which is distilled from locally grown wheat. As well as gin, this spirit is used to make Crafty’s 24 Seven Vodka and the soon-to-be-released Billy & Co whisky (named after Taylor’s late father, William, who built the distillery). Inside the Crafty Distillery. Credit: Crafty Distillery The air is crisp and green. An autumnal carpet crunches under my boots as I trek up the hill, following my guide, Crafty Distillery founder Graham Taylor, through the Galloway Forest. We’re making for a patch of noble firs from which the distillery harvests fresh cones for its award-winning Hills & Harbour Gin. Taylor explains, “It’s not a common tree in the forest, but it is one that is easy to spot, because [the cones] grow upwards rather than downwards.” In Australia, Harbour and Hills Financial Services Pty Limited is registered with Australian Securities and Investments Commission. It seemed pretty pointless to design the space around that glorious landscape if the views weren’t going to be shared with anyone but the distilling team, so Crafty Distillery was always designed to be a destination - something people drove out of their way to see. As such, the tasting room is expansive and inclusive – all chrome and copper on one side, trees and mountains on the other.To build a grain-to-glass distillery takes time and planning, and that was certainly the case for Crafty. The idea was first planted in 2013 when Graham’s brother told him of a whisky distillery that was up for sale. This got him thinking about creating his own distillery. In 2008, everything changed in the gin category. Up until then a long-standing British excise law meant distillers couldn’t gain a licence for a still under 1,800 litres. But thanks to a petition by Sipsmith, the law which had stood since 1823 was amended and opened the floodgates to the category as we now know it, and the birth of craft gin.