Ramsbury General Manager Nikolas Fordham talks single estate spirits, sustainability, and grain-to-glass vodka and gin
There’s a lot of talk about grain-to-glass in today’s spirits world. However, the term seems to deceive as often as it clarifies. To get a better understanding of what it really takes to make grain-to-glass spirits and learn more about Ramsbury Single Estate Spirits and their gin and vodka, we sat down with General Manager Nikolas Fordham.
Nikolas Fordham: You make your spirits in the Wiltshire countryside. Why is that a unique place to make spirits and how do you see that in the final product?
Spirited: The location is pivotal to all that we do at Ramsbury, focused on the Ramsbury Estate Farm where we grow our own barley which we use for beer, and the wheat that we distil to create the base spirit. This base spirit is used to create all the multi award winning Ramsbury spirits on site from our vodka all the way to our London Dry gin and sloe gin. When we say we are grain-to-glass we truly are.
Nikolas: Can you take us through the process of making your gin and vodka?
Spirited: Firstly, we grow all of our own wheat, we sow the seeds, we harvest, we then dry it ready for production. We then “mash in”, which is basically extracting all the sugars from the wheat which we ferment for approx 6-7 days to create the beer wash. We then start the first of our four distillation processes to provide neutral spirits. The first stage is “beer stripping” – where we use a pressurised column to strip all of the alcohol from the wash. Once we’ve got the initial spirit – we rectify it through a 47-plate column giving us approximately 95% ABV alcohol. We then carry out a process of demethylation, so that we can be compliant with the EU regulations of less than 5 parts per million in our base spirit. We generally achieve 1.25 ppm or better. We then rectify the spirit once again through the 47 plate column to between 96.1% and 96.2% ABV. This is the creation of our base spirit. We then use this to create our vodka and gin. Ramsbury Single Estate Vodka is then created by reducing the base spirit with filtered water from our own well to bottling strength, this is then chill-filtered at -2 degrees celsius. Once this is complete we then warm it up and bottle. Ramsbury Single Estate Gin is produced using the same base spirit at 96.1% ABV and we rectify this in the presence of our botanicals to create a supremely balanced London Dry Gin. That is it, basically! A really short version of what we do!
Nikolas: What makes British winter wheat special when it comes to using it for the base of your spirits?
Spirited: Growing on the Wiltshire Downs provides a unique flavour profile from the wheat, which is why our winter wheat is so important. This provides the wheat with a flavour that enables us to create the San Francisco ‘World’s Best in class Vodka 2023’ and the London Spirits competition Vodka of the year 2024. We feel that the climate and soil conditions as well as the care and attention that our farm team put into sowing the seed, harvesting and drying is so important to the production and flavour of our spirits.
Nikolas: We hear the term “grain-to-glass” a lot these days and it seems to mean a variety of different things. What does “grain-to-glass” mean in the case of Ramsbury Single Estate Spirits?
Spirited: In our case, we sow the seed, we cultivate the seed, we harvest the seed and we distil the spirit from our own grain before bottling. The whole process happens on the Ramsbury Estate, which is why we’re one of the very few distillers in the world that grow and bottle their spirits on the same estate.
Nikolas: Why is sustainability an important part of Ramsbury’s ethos? And how do you maintain this concept of sustainability when making your spirits?
Spirited: Sustainability has always been integral to everything we do from farming, to brewing to distilling. We see that by working with the land and nature, to optimise our growing conditions for our plants using the same ethos where we use everything and waste nothing, delivers a super sustainable circular supply chain which is critical to our product. All of the by-products from distilling and brewing we use to feed the cattle we have on the estate. Being part of such a progressive and environmentally focused estate has leant itself naturally to producing a premium spirit that delivers the same credentials.
Nikolas: Can you tell us about your seasonal releases?
Spirited: So pleased you asked us about this, following a super successful limited release and consumer requests we’ve just elevated the Raspberry & Wildflower Honey Gin, into our permanent product range, now to be available countrywide. Our Christmas gin was received incredibly well by consumers and connoisseurs alike and so will be making another appearance this year and innovation is core to everything that we do. We have also been busy in the estate glass houses growing plants for our summer release so look out for something extra, especially Lemon.
Nikolas: Both your gin and your vodka have taken home awards recently. What does that mean to you and how does it impact the brand moving forward?
Spirited: Winning awards is so very important to us. It validates all we do in the pursuit of excellence and demonstrates the care, attention to detail and passion that goes into every bottle that we produce. These awards recognise the whole team from the farm to the bottling team and the distillers which is an amazing appreciation of the group of people we’re proud to call our team.
Nikolas: What’s next for Ramsbury Single Estate Spirits?
Spirited: As I alluded to earlier, innovation is always at the core of everything we do; however we always have an open eye to thinking about what else we can produce within the distillery and the knowledge and understanding form the team we have on site. There’s no real spirit we can’t make.
For more information, head over to the distillery’s official website.