A Lake District distillery is celebrating after two of its products have been shortlisted for a prestigious national awards.
Grasmere Distillery’s Sugar Beet Vodka and Dry Gin are nominated in two categories in the People’s Choice Spirit Awards.
The finals are set to take place in Manchester on March 10 where the finalists will discover who has won the bronze, silver, and gold medals in each of the categories.
Each year the blind tasting and judging process is undertaken by a mix of industry professionals, including respected buyers, drinks journalists and sommeliers, as well as consumers and Wine & Spirit Education Trust students studying for a range of qualifications.
Finalists are ranked on a number of stringent criteria, which include aroma and flavour, balance and quality, suitability for the category and value for money. In some instances, a second round of judging is undertaken for certain categories where close scoring or identical scores between two spirits have been recorded to determine who will take the plaudits.
Grasmere Distillery co-founder and head distiller Paul Abbot said: “Being shortlisted in two categories in the People’s Choice Spirits Awards is fantastic.
“Especially as the awards are the only ones where consumers and professionals judge the products side by side to identify the medal winners.
“We’re one of only a handful of grain-to-glass distilleries in the UK that make their spirits from scratch, and I think that attention to detail, dedication and commitment is something worth celebrating.
“As many will know we have also embarked on a journey to create our own whisky, which in the fullness of time will also be entered into awards like this.
“But we’ve got several years to go in the interim whilst the spirit matures in cask and further develops the unique flavours and characteristics of what we’ve aimed to craft, and we look forward to revealing the various iterations in the coming years.‘’
