Shed 1 Distillery in Ulverston, Cumbria, was launched in 2016 from a 7x7 foot Garden Shed. Since then husband and wife team, Andy & Zoe Arnold-Bennett, have produced award winning gins, gin liqueurs and gin marmalade. This week they became finalists in the Gin Guide Awards not just with their Cuckold's Revenge Gin, but also for their Environmental Sustainability credentials.

Cuckold's Revenge was the first gin they created and it has proved a winner, gaining a Great Taste Award and Highly Commended in the Gin Crafdi Awards. It is also featured in the latest edition of 101 Gins to Try Before You Die, by Ian Buxton. The Gin Guide Awards received 100s of entries from 30 countries. It is judged by 18 gin experts who blind-taste each one. Finalists and Winners of the The Gin Guide Awards are selected through a rigorous blind tasting and unique scoring process developed by Paul Jackson, Founder and Editor of The Gin Guide. To present the most rounded and widely relevant results, the carefully selected and expert judges bring together specialisms in gin distillation, spirits retail, mixology, events, distribution, marketing and PR. Winners and runners up will be announced on Tuesday, April 21st.

In October, 2019, Andy and Zoe moved their operation across the road to The Old Calf Shed. Here, they opened a public bar where visitors could enjoy a G&T and take in the iconic view of Ulverston's Pepperpot, buy a bottle or two and take part in a Gin Experience. Shed 1 Distillery is the first in Cumbria to offer Make Your Own Gin experiences. Zoe also created an Afternoon G&Tea adding some of the gin botanicals in to the sweet treats. In November of 2019 they became Green Small Business Certified. "To be a finalist in the Environmental Sustainability category of the Gin Guide Awards feels great", Andy said, "Since we launched we're tried to be as green as possible, within the limits of being such a small business. When we moved to our bigger premises we were able to put more intitatives in place, including a closed-loop cooling system to save on the amount of water used in the distilling process."

Everything was really starting to take off for them in 2020. The bar was becoming more known and popular, many visitors had enjoyed Gin Tours, Afternoon G&Teas and MYOGin. They'd even hired out the bar for a private party and had a few more booked in for the year. Then, along came COVID-19 and the Shed had to close to the public. Gin production is now at a minimum.

While they were wondering what to do, the local hospice got in contact and asked if they made hand sanitiser. With help from the BDA (British Distillers Alliance) they were able to negotiate the red tape and set up production. However, as finances are very tight they turned to the public for help. Zoe and Andy set up a JustGiving crowdfunder to pay for the materials and ingredients, and they make and gift bottles to local groups, organisations and charities. The public donated over £5,000 in a week and every penny is going towards the hand sanitiser. "The public have been so generous. We couldn't have done this without them. We thought we would be plugging a gap in the third sector," said Zoe, "but we've had enquiries from, and supplied, the County Council, NHS, and even the MOD. We are trying to help as many groups as we can and a lot of our sanitiser has gone out to care homes, homeless support group, the foodbank, the hospice of course and many others who are caring for the most vulnerable in our community."

Their aim is to continue to produce the sanitiser, made to the WHO formula, for as long as they are needed. Production is nowhere near state of the art, though. Andy said, "We're one up from a bucket and we fill all the bottles by hand. We also use our office printer for the labels. We started as a micro-distillery, and now we're a micro-hand sanitiser factory!"

Andy & Zoe are both hoping that the business will survive this crisis. "Being finalists in the Gin Guide Awards gives us a much needed emotional boost. We are living in very uncertain times but we hope that we will be able to reopen the Shed once this is over and get back to doing what we do best, creating gin!"