Thames Distillers raises our spirits with its new residence and bar in London

The brand new residence of Thames Distillers, the Eleventh-generation, family-led firm of gin makers, is tucked away inside a cobble-stoned, interval industrial complicated off London’s Outdated Kent Highway. Whereas at first look, the enterprise’s new setting might sound utilitarian and unassuming, it’s one steeped in a historical past of constructing, commerce and crafts, sitting in part of the capital that has, prior to now, teemed with manufacturing amenities, attributable to its proximity to world commerce routes by way of the previous Grand Surrey Canal.

Thames Distillers’ new residence and bar

Comprising a brand new distillery and consumer expertise, the mission varieties a part of a contemporary chapter for the realm, previously a Victorian warehouse district. The distillery is about inside The Bottle Manufacturing facility, a campus just lately revitalised by property specialist Fabrix as a artistic workspace, occasion and manufacturing hub.

Having as soon as served as a mineral water, lemonade and ginger beer bottling plant, the constructing is situated subsequent to an outdated essence firm creating bitters and mixers. Persevering with this custom in drink-making of every kind, Thames Distillers turned to Transit Studio and its founder, Zoe Masterton-Smith, to assist rework the present historic construction into a contemporary manufacturing facility and occasion area, when the thriving enterprise was compelled to relocate following the sale of its earlier base in Clapham.

Director Charles Maxwell and his household have been distilling in London since 1681, making it one of many oldest household distillers within the UK and one in every of only a few actually business distilleries left within the capital. Thames Distillers has created over 300 gins, and in any given yr it distils over three million bottles of gin throughout as many as 60 totally different recipes.

‘As drinks and spirits in the present day are extra experiential than ever earlier than, we needed a brand new residence that displays that, sensible but additionally stuffed with character,’ says George Maxwell, Charles’ son and COO.

The brand new residence on Outdated Kent Highway was born of this want. Its unmistakable centrepiece is a state-of-the-art bar, commissioned alongside one in every of Thames Distillers’ purchasers, Fords Gin. ‘When [Fords] heard we have been transferring, they needed to collectively create an area the place they’ll showcase their heritage. And we will likely be utilizing it for our occasions too – and even for rent,’ says Maxwell.

‘The format of the bar is the results of a collaboration between Leo Robitschek (cocktail royalty from NoMad Resorts and Eleven Madison Park, amongst others) and Fords Gin,’ explains Masterton-Smith. ‘The bar is ergonomically designed round a central, shared spirit and modifier effectively [a specialised storage space for the drinks], the place the 2 cocktail stations are left and right-oriented. The bar is organized for an economic system of motion in order that for every cocktail created, the bartender doesn’t need to take a couple of step.’

Echoing the gin-making enterprise’ love for British craft, the bar is wrapped in deep inexperienced marble with a fluted marble bar entrance, oak and reeded glass, and options bar lights harking back to soda siphons made out of Holophane glass and porcelain. The area contains floorboards reclaimed from a former timber mill in Bristol; a mixture of modern and classic furnishings items (together with a eating desk made out of reclaimed timbers and midcentury furnishings items equivalent to Børge Mogensen & Tage Poulsen sofas); and an vintage store show unit for the distillery’s archive of two,000 gins recipes they’ve created over their three centuries of operation.

Subsequent to the bar and occasion area are Thames Distillers’ most treasured possessions – Tom Thumb and Thumbelina, surprisingly small stills which have belonged to the enterprise for the reason that early Nineties. Whereas the bar is the positioning’s most public-facing part, they’re an integral a part of the corporate’s new residence, guaranteeing the long-standing enterprise can maintain producing its in style spirit for hundreds of years to return.