Bottomley Distillers’ New Distillery, Lincolnshire

Bottomley Distillers moved into a new distillery in Lincolnshire, UK, in January 2021 after its acquisition by Next Frontier Brands, a wellness company, in October 2020.

The acquisition marks the company’s entry into the spirits industry. Next Frontier plans to invest at least £5m ($6.4m) in Bottomley in the next two years.

Bottomley will continue to operate under its name but will utilise Next Frontier’s expertise and international distribution platform to make its award-winning Pin Gin into a global brand.

Bottomley’s new distillery details

The Bottomley’s new gin distillery is fourteen times bigger than their previous site, which will enable the company to keep up with the increasing demand and production rates. The new distillery houses a 5,000l still directly visible from the visitors centre.

Situated at Bolingbroke Road in the town of Louth, the distillery offers tours, tasting sessions, bar, on-site shop and a gin school within its premises.

The tour begins with a drink of gin and tonic, along with an introduction to the Bottomley Distillers and their Pin Gin. The visitors can tour around the distillery in full operation and are provided with samples of that day’s distillation.

The gin school allows the visitors to explore various botanicals before choosing a personal recipe and loading their miniature copper pot still for preparing a personalised gin. The visitors are provided with a bottled and labelled sample of their hand-made drink.

The distillery also allows corporate bookings for a team-building gin school. It also provides space for client meetings.

The facility employs a new self-learning programmable logic controller (PLC) system developed by Power Distribution Control that runs with artificial technology (AI) and eases the process of spirit making, allowing efficient operation of the entire zero-waste distillation process.

Bottomley Distillers’ products

Bottomley’s Pin Gin, the company’s flagship spirit, is a boutique London dry gin, which is made using custom-built copper stills and carefully chosen botanicals, distilled and hand-made in Louth. The distillery currently produces the Pin Gin and Rum Cat brands and is laying down casks of spirit that will age to become Lincolnshire whisky.

The company has started casking the Lincolnshire Grain Single Malt Whisky, which is the original recipe of the founder of Bottomley.

Since December 2020, the company has eliminated plastic from its packaging completely and switched to a 100% recyclable, adaptable eco-packaging kit manufactured by Flexi-Hex.

Marketing commentary on Bottomley Distillers

Bottomley Distillers is a family-owned distillery, whose heritage trails back to a small-scale whisky producer, Stansfield Bottomley, in the 1950s. It is believed to be the oldest distillery of Lincolnshire.

Mr Stansfield Bottomley’s youngest son established the distillery in 2016. Bottomley Distillers began distilling in their garage and moved to a new place in April 2019, and finally moved to Lincolnshire.

The company witnessed exponential growth since its foundation and produced 200 to 300 bottles of gin every week during its first year of production. Within four years of foundation, the company went from selling their products in retail spaces and local bars to running its gin school and tasting room.

The distillery currently includes 12 brands with more than 150 products for international distribution. Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, the company operates offices in London and New Zealand.

Bottomley Distillers won Lincolnshire’s technology and innovation awards in 2019, for innovation in sustainability for their distilling processes and overall business.

The company faced a tough time during the Covid-19 outbreak when they used their facilities to produce hand sanitiser commercially. It has produced more than 15,000l of hand sanitiser since March 2020 and has been supplying the same to National Health Services (NHS) services, social care providers, charities and food supply chains.