When life hands you gorse flowers, make gin. So runs the motto infusing the Wild Wingletang gin crafted by Aiden Hicks at Westward Farm on St. Agnes.
Venture onto the rugged heathlands of Wingletang Down, where the Hicks family graze their Red Ruby beef cattle, and you’ll see gorse bushes wearing their cheery yellow overcoats virtually all year round. They’re so omnipresent, in fact, that they gave Wingletang its name - from ‘whin’ meaning gorse, and ‘tang’, which means kelp, equally abundant.
The area backs on to Westward Farm, so when Aiden was a child, Wingletang was his playground. He and his brothers scrambled over its vast granite boulders (some once forming Bronze Age tombs), played in the heather, and fished for mackerel off its coastal rocks. After a big sea they were sometimes lucky enough to find ceramic beads which had been deposited by a shipwrecked Venetian ship in the 17th century and subsequently gave their name to Beady Pool.
The idea of using Wingletang’s gorse blooms to make gin was born after another flower, the narcissus, lost its appeal. “Like everyone on St. Agnes, we grew narcissi,” says Aiden. “But we had no control over their price and quite often we were working at a loss. Also, I’m six foot six, so I had to bend a long way down to pick them! We knew we need to diversify and find a product we could have total control over.”
It was a long and laborious search. Aiden’s mother Christine had always loved aromatherapy, so looked into finding a way to distill the scent of the narcissi. That didn’t prove feasible, so the family started growing plants for essential oils to infuse into soaps and shower gels which they branded Twenty Eight - the number of miles between Scilly and the Cornish mainland. Gradually bushes of rose geranium, lavender, chamomile and rosemary replaced the ordered rows of flowers, and by 2015, the Hicks had tied their last bunch of narcissi.
Then suddenly Aiden was struck by illness, which stripped him of his previous energy. He wracked his brain to think of something he could do in the future that wouldn’t need a high level of physical fitness. The gin idea was born. “Gin was very popular, we already had a good knowledge of botanicals and distilling, and no-one else was making gin on Scilly, so it seemed like a no-brainer,” he says. “It was a leap into the dark, but I decided to go for it.”
Aiden kept the business deliberately small, with just two 25-litre stills, each making 28 - Westward’s magic number - bottles at time. “We must be one of the smallest commercial distilleries in the country,” he smiles. “But at the height of the season, we have to work our stills hard to keep up with demand, and run them twice a day, seven days a week.”
Many of the ingredients that the farm already grew for its soaps, such as rose geranium and chamomile, could be used for gin too. Combined with a few exotic botanicals and pure island water, they produced a 28-mile gin, its name echoing Christine’s beauty products. The 28-mile gin recipe changes constantly depending on what plants are available, but the Hicks have already made a version with honey and orange blend to celebrate their precious honey.
Aiden and his father Mike also started foraging for ingredients, such as gorse flowers to use in their Wild Wingletang Gin. First they distill the flowers into a single botanical spirit, then they combine that with their classic dry Scilly Gin, made from a range of botanicals including juniper, and homegrown coriander seed and angelica. It’s a similar process for their bestselling Rose Geranium Gin, distilled from the farm’s homegrown rose geranium that also flavours the ice creams at Troytown Farm, run by Mike’s bother Tim.
As the family developed their range of gins, they called on fellow islanders, including ex-chef and food writer Piers Lewin, to lend their palates and give honest opinions on the levels of flavourings. Unsurprisingly, they weren’t short of willing volunteers. After months of tasting and blending, Aiden dropped off his first batch at the island’s tiny shop and looked forward to a well earned rest. But later that day he got a call saying all the bottles had sold. Businesses on the mainland started placing orders, raving about the gin’s smoothness and distinctive flavours. The gin was here to stay.
Today, gin is Westward’s main income, and in addition to producing gins to sell online and in Scillonian shops, the farm is teaming up with local businesses to create custom-made gins. For Tanglewood Kitchen on St. Mary’s, for instance, a spicy pink gin has been created which gets its rosy hue from the addition of a dash of Angostura bitters - originally added by Royal Navy sailors in the 1800s to prevent sea sickness.
Westward has also worked with Tresco Abbey Garden to produce a flavoursome gin from coleonema, or confetti bush, which flourishes in the sub-tropical gardens. “In South Africa, where the plant originates, it’s used as a herb, so we were pretty sure it would work well,” says Aiden. “The result was outstanding, with notes of pine, citrus and spice.”
Given the importance of fresh botanicals, distilling follows the seasons. So in spring the Hicks will be harvesting Wingletang’s gorse flowers when at their flavoursome best. They’re gathered in the morning, once the dew has burned off. “We go out as a family and pick around two and a half kilograms of blossoms, enough for 300 bottles. We then steep them in alcohol straight away, while they’re really fresh” says Aiden. “The picking takes a couple of hours. We then spend about 24 hours removing gorse prickles from our fingers!”
But it’s worth the hardship, he says. “When the flowers are in the sun, they give off a wonderful coconut scent, as any visitor to St. Agnes will know. This dissipates when the flowers are distilled. Instead, you get a deep, green nutty flavour, perhaps not surprising when you remember that gorse belongs to the pea family.”
How to drink it? Pour your chilled Wild Wingletang over some ice and add a plain quality tonic and a twist of lemon, says Aiden. Carry your glass to a grassy spot beside Wingletang’s iconic Devil’s Punch Bowl Logan Stone and lift it to your lips. Savour Scilly in a sip.
Image credit: adjbrown.com
