A mill, a river and a family who thought the valley deserved its own spirit again.
There was a distillery on the river Ashe once before. It closed in 1921, and for sixty years the only spirit in the valley came from somewhere else. In 1987 the old corn mill came up for sale, and with it the water rights to the spring above it.
Two stills and a lot of patience
Our first pair of copper pot stills was bought second-hand from a closing distillery in the north and rebuilt in the mill yard. They are small, slow and temperamental, and we would not swap them for anything: the long contact between vapour and copper is what gives our new make its clean, fruity character.
We make spirit the slow way because it is the only way we know how to make it well.
Grown and gathered nearby
Our barley comes from four farms within twelve miles, floor-malted down the lane. The botanicals in Hedgerow Gin are picked on the estate. Spent grain goes back to the farms as cattle feed, and the stills are heated by a biomass boiler fed with offcuts from the cooperage.
Ashcombe Still House is a fictional distillery created to demonstrate this theme. Names, products, prices and addresses are illustrative.
Timeline
Forty years in seven moments
1921
The first distillery closes
After a century on the river, the original Ashe distillery shuts its gates. The valley goes without its own spirit for sixty-six years.
1987
The mill is bought
The Hale family buys the derelict corn mill and, with it, the rights to the spring above. A pair of second-hand copper stills arrive on a flatbed.
1991
First new make runs
Four years of rebuilding later, the first spirit runs clear from the stills. Cask 0001 is filled that afternoon and is still resting.
2004
The warehouse is built
A stone warehouse is raised from the mill’s own demolished outbuildings. Earth floors, slate roof, no heating.
2011
Riverstone 12 is released
The first twelve-year-old leaves the warehouse and the distillery opens its doors to visitors for the first time.
2019
Hedgerow Gin joins the range
A second small still arrives, and the estate hedges start to be picked for botanicals.
2026
Warehouse No. 3
Cask 0412 is bottled at eighteen years — the oldest spirit we have released.
What we hold to
Three rules, no exceptions
01
Slowness
Four-day ferments, hand-run stills, and casks that stay until they are ready. We have never released a spirit to meet a date.
02
Locality
Barley from four farms within twelve miles, botanicals from our own hedges, water from the mill spring, oak coopered down the road.
03
Honesty
No added colour, no chill-filtering, and a label that tells you the cask, the batch and the strength.
The team
Who is behind the stills
MH
Margaret Hale
Founder & chair
Bought the mill in 1987 and still signs off every blend.
TW
Tomasz Wren
Head stillman
Thirty years on the stills; makes every cut by nose before he reaches for the hydrometer.
PN
Priya Nair
Master blender
Joined as a cellar hand in 2009. Vats the casks that become Riverstone and Warehouse No. 3.
ED
Ewan Doyle
Visitor centre
Leads the tours, pours the samples and knows every cask by its number.
The estate
Making spirit that leaves the valley no poorer
100% of spent grain goes back to local farms as feed
85% of still-house heat comes from a biomass boiler
0 water leaves the site untreated — reed beds clean the process water