Tucked away in Cumbria, Shed One Distillery is proof that some of the most thoughtful, flavour-led spirits begin in the smallest of spaces. What started as a curiosity-driven experiment with home-infused gins has grown into an award-winning micro-distillery known for its London Dry gins, botanical vodkas and deeply considered approach to sustainability.
Founded by Zoe and Andy, Shed One is driven by a people-and-planet-first philosophy - one that values small-batch craftsmanship, local collaboration and responsible production over mass-market shortcuts. From foraged botanicals and community partnerships to innovative low-waste mixers and cocktails, every decision is made with intention.
We caught up with Zoe to talk about the origins of Shed One Distillery, how flavour inspiration strikes in unexpected places, why sustainability must be practical rather than perfect, and what excites her most about the next chapter of this quietly pioneering brand.
What moment or experience sparked the idea for Shed One Distillery, and how has that initial spark shaped the spirit of your brand today?
I was making compound damson sloe and bramble gins as many people do. Andy got interested in it and we started playing with other ingredients from the kitchen cupboard and garden. In order to go to the next level, we needed a still. However, in the UK you can’t distil unless you have a licence, so we decided to go for it! We have two sheds in our very small garden, and put the 25 litre still in our 7x7 foot “Shed One”, which sorted out the branding!
How would you describe Shed One’s signature style of small batch distilling to someone discovering your brand for the first time?
We create premium, London Dry Gins and use the same process for our botanical vodkas. There can be a confusion around the term London Dry Gin. It’s the process not a description of where it is made. Simply put, you start with 96%abv alcohol (the purest), and there are no additions after distilling. Also, unlike many mass-produced spirits we don’t choose the final %abv. That is dictated by the mix of botanicals in the recipe. For example, our very first creation, Cuckold’s Revenge Gin, is 44%abv and our Shed Loads of Love Gin is 41%abv. If we were to swap those over, neither would sing the way they do now.
What personal values do you feel are infused into every bottle - and how do those values guide your decision-making as the business grows?
People and planet-led is part of our DNA. From the beginning we looked at ways we could be sustainable and regenerative. This can be particularly hard when you’re a micro business. Nowadays, we are based in The Old Calf Shed which we rent and have no outdoor space. However, we have found ways, and think outside the box.
Every decision we make is guided by our green ethos. We’re proud to say that we won The Gin Guide’s Environmental Sustainability Award for four years running and, in 2024, won the in-Cumbria Business Award for Best Community Involvement as well as working on the business’ sustainability, I’ve given talks and written blogs for various groups about what we do.
I hope that we fly the flag for micro businesses, and show what it can be done. We always say to ignore what you can’t do-for now, and concentrate on what you can, regardless of how small you may think it is. Generally, once a business takes their first step, momentum builds and they achieve far more than they initially thought they would.
It would be nice to have some assistance from government to help us and others like us. I feel that, for example, tax incentives would make a big difference and encourage more micro businesses to take steps to be greener. Also, to simplify the messaging, which has always been confusing and ha bs changed over the years as more is discovered.
Your gins and spirits are known for creative botanical blends. How do you approach flavour development for new spirits, and what makes a blend truly “Shed One”?
You never know when “ginspiration” will strike!
We were walking Gertie, our Border Terrier, on a beach on a particularly wet and windy day in November and she was jumping and frolicking and thoroughly enjoying herself oblivious to the weather. We’d both thought we needed to create a summer gin, and her antics inspired us. By the time we were home we’d figured out the botanicals we wanted to showcase and it only took a couple of tweaks before Fancy Frolic was born.
The botanicals include fresh lime zest, linden flower, lime leaf, elderflower, strawberry and some ginger for summer heat. It’s won both a Great Taste Award and World Gin Award and has a very loyal following.
Can you share a behind-the-scenes look at how you experiment with new botanicals, seasonal flavours, or innovative limited-edition spirits?
Our Ulverston Gin is a perfect example. I was walking on hoad (the iconic hill in our l’al town) and realised we hadn’t made a spirit inspired directly by our home. We got in touch with Sarah, a local medical herbalist who guides herb walks and we spent most of a day rambling around with her pointing out where to find all these wonderful plants, their tastes and history. Since then, my knowledge and interest in foraging continues to grow. I collected a variety of botanicals; for example, elderflower, comfrey, herb robert, sheep sorrel, speedwell, blackcurrant leaves, sticky willy (also known as cleavers, galium aparine).
At the Shed we infused each one in alcohol, as well as putting a dry mix together. Once we hit on a mix that we like, we add juniper and do a mini distil in one of our 2 litre stills. This means blending the 96%abv grain spirit with filtered Cumbrian water, taking it to 40%abv. This goes in the still with the botanicals and then we distil. It comes out at 80%abv. We then blend this with more filtered water and taste, and blend and taste until we hit on the %abv that brings out the best of the mix. It’s then left to relax for two weeks. By this time, everything has had a chance to relax and smooth out. From this point, the flavour will never change. If we’re happy with the result, we then work out the amounts to distil in our 100 litre still and off we go!
For our Ulverston Gin, we only forage enough for one, two at most, batches. We dry all the botanicals. Once we’ve used them all up, that’s the end of that year’s Ulverston Gin.
The beauty of foraging for spirit making, is you can be a responsible forager. For one batch of 110 bottles, we’ll use less than 100g (in total) of foraged botanicals. As for the juniper, we source ours sustainably from outside of the UK. The weather conditions here aren’t right for growing consistently high-quality juniper that can be relied on to grow regularly.
Once we’ve made the spirit, I design a label to complement the recipe.
You have some exciting new products coming soon - what inspired these upcoming launches, and what gap do you feel they fill in the craft-spirits market?
We recently created our own recipe Indian Tonic Water Cordial. Another local small business makes up our recipe in bulk. The main reason for creating it was sustainability. We used to buy in cans of tonic water which we’d then have to recycle.
We mix it in-house with filtered Cumbrian water, that we carbonate. We have a very posh soda stream! The result is saving over 3,500 empty cans going into recycling. The recipe we’ve put together also means it enhances craft spirits, rather than adding too many other flavours that clash.
We’ve just finished designing a Cola Syrup Cordial which will mean no more buying those cans, either. The Cola Syrup Cordial has inspired our first cocktails in a bottle. Working with a local mixologist, we’ve created a few cocktails using our spirits, homemade sugar syrups and more. We launched them in mid-December, locally. In 2026 we’ll be looking for opportunities to get them out further afield.
What does being a community-rooted distillery mean to you - and how do you bring local heritage or local partnerships into your brand story?
Our business isn’t sustainable if we stand alone. We all need to support each other in order to survive. When someone visits Shed One Distillery for an experience, we encourage them to stay in the area and enjoy what the area has to offer. We give recommendations, hand out maps and pamphlets and we’ve worked with a number of local businesses and groups.
The first Botanical Vodka we made was a result of a conversation with the gardener at our local park. Ford Park has a beautiful walled garden. Among the many plants they grow, there is quince tree. We take all the quince, their pears and sage and make our Quince, Pear & Sage Vodka. I also make quince jelly that I use as an ingredient for our afternoon tea scones. Ford park is run as a charity, so part of each bottle sale goes back to them.
Our Marmalade Fund started due to all the surplus citrus fruit we have. We only use the fresh zest in our spirit production. I make Jelly Marmalade based on our different gins. For example, I add juniper, ginger and elderflower when making our Fancy Frolic Gin Jelly Marmalade. Some of them get a splosh of alcohol, some don’t. We serve it with our afternoon tea and sell it in jars. Most of each sale goes into our Marmalade Fund, which in turn is donated to our charity partner, Furness Homeless Support Group.
Your distillery experiences and events are a big part of the Shed One identity. What kind of moment - or reaction - do you hope every visitor walks away with?
At Shed One, we hope every visitor leaves with a smile, a story, and a sense that they’ve been part of something crafted with care. We may be small, but it’s our refuge from the world and we hope our visitors feel part of that.
When guests join us, whether that be for one of our experiences, a drink in the bar or to buy a bottle to take away, we want them to feel they’ve stepped into a space where things are created thoughtfully and sustainably.
It’s important to us that people see the beauty in small-batch making, the joy in sharing local flavours, and the difference that mindful choices can make.
A sentence from the feedback we received from a Mystery Shopper on our Make Your Own Spirit Experience comes to mind, “The session is a lovely balance of storytelling, instruction and allowing space for participants to just kick back and relax.”
What is the most unusual botanical you’ve ever been tempted to distil with - did it work or end in a hilarious disaster?
Not unusual but Andy wanted to make a Dandelion and Burdock Gin, harking back to his youth. It included Angelica and a few other interesting botanicals. You have to be careful working with roots as they can be very earthy. After some experimenting, we both rather liked the result, but Andy wasn’t convinced that many others would! So, we put the idea on the backburner.
Not long later we remembered that it was soon to be Andy’s birthday, too late to arrange anything too complicated. We decided to utilise the ginnel (wide alleyway) next to our house and sent out invitations to “A Giggle in the Ginnel”. We filled it with chairs and tables and a couple of barbecues.
Of course, we were going to make a celebration gin to go with the day, and we were drawn back to some of the botanicals we’d used in the Dandelion and Burdock. We served Giggle in the Ginnel: Elderberries, Star Anise, Angelica Root, and more. It went down very well and it became our second commercial product. It has an aniseed edge, and the angelica is earthy and dry, the elderberries also add an earthy quality, but with a soft tanginess.
We do call it our Marmite Gin, as the aniseed can be polarising; however, very pleased to say that it won a Signature Botanical Award at the World Gin Awards.
As for the Dandelion and Burdock, it’s not been forgotten and I think we’ll go back to it one day.
If Shed One hosted a dream dinner party with any three guests (real or fictional), who would you invite - and which spirit of yours would you serve them?
I could think of a few famous faces I would be thrilled to share a dinner party with. But there’s only one person I would love to be there, and it would be my dad, David. He died in March, 2015, after a long illness. At the time, Andy was still acting and was on tour for most the time. I was working online and going back and forth from home to my parents’ home. Andy was with us when he died, and then had to go back on the tour, getting a day to come back for the funeral.
The whole experience showed us that we needed to rethink our life so we could spend more time together and with the people we love. Soon after was when Andy started getting more interested in the compound gins I was making. By October, 2016, we’d launched Shed One.
I know how much my dad would have adored what we do. He would have been our biggest, loudest champion, and probably our number one taste tester! There is a framed collage of him on one of the bottle shelves in the Shed, so he is always there, watching over what we do.
As for which spirit we’d serve him? It would have to be a flight of tasters!
What’s your go-to way to enjoy your gin after a busy day - simple G&T, cocktail, neat, or something more experimental?
It depends on the time of year, but if the nights are drawing in, I tend to opt for one of our spicier spirits, like Cuckold’s Revenge, Festive Tipple or our Chilli Fest. I put a couple of shots in cup and warm in the microwave for 10-15 seconds. Then pour into a warm glass and sip it neat. Warming brings out the spice.
At Christmas time, a dram of warm Festive Tipple with a mince pie, in front of the fire, is perfect. Andy was surprised the first time I served our spirits warmed. He thinks it’s a throwback from when I lived in Japan and Korea.
Looking ahead, what excites you most about the next chapter of Shed One Distillery?
In October, 2026, we will be 10. Not sure where the time has gone but I hope we spend part of this year recollecting and celebrating what we’ve achieved.
As for what’s new, we’ve just launched a set of Premium Cocktails in collaboration with a local, very talented mixologist, Kindred Spirit Cocktails. Tom’s worked with us on a few projects over the years and it’s great to be doing this with him.
That’s what we love, outside of our own creations and sharing the Shed with our visitors. It’s having the opportunity to collaborate with others who are doing amazing things.
For example, we’re also working on a project with a Michelin star chef.
Plus, we’ve created a new experience called, “The Ultimate Distiller’s Experience”. Rather than coming to the Shed and making your own spirit in a mini still, visitors will get to be part of the inner workings and assist in distilling with our 100 litre still. And of course, there will be cake and gin!
What shines through in Zoe’s story is that Shed One Distillery has never been about scale for scale’s sake. It’s about care, for flavour, for people, for place, and for the long-term impact of small choices made consistently well.
Whether it’s foraging responsibly for a once-a-year gin, reducing thousands of single-use cans through house-made cordials, or creating experiences that allow visitors to slow down and feel part of something genuinely crafted, Shed One remains rooted in intention rather than trend.
As the distillery approaches its tenth year, the future looks both exciting and grounded: new collaborations, immersive distilling experiences, bottled cocktails, and at the heart of it all, the same thoughtful spirit that began in a 7x7 garden shed. Proof that when you build with purpose, even the smallest spaces can leave a lasting impression. Find out more at https://shed1distillery.com/
